


The Delphos Saga- The Novel

by todays_keysmash_is



Category: Life of the Party D&D (Web Series)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Canon Compliant, Drama, Fluff, Found Family, Humor, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 393,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28537695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todays_keysmash_is/pseuds/todays_keysmash_is
Summary: The title says it all! The entirety of The Delphos Saga Arc One as a novel.Although I have obtained permission from the original creators to post this, this is still in no way official and purely fan created. It is my hope that this can be a community resource for those who might wish to enjoy The Delphos Sage D&D web series by reading it through in a written format.If you would like to learn a bit more about this project, please read on through the notes for a more in depth explanation! Otherwise, feel free to jump to the first chapter and relive the adventure, or skip around to your favorite moments.
Kudos: 5





	1. Destiny Awaits, Episode One

**Author's Note:**

> This is a translation of The Delphos Saga D&D web series from audio format to a storybook format. All of the writing is as close to word for word translation of the videos as I could manage.* Please read the notes on Chapter One for a more in depth explanation of this project. Alternatively, you can find the full explanation for the novelization process in the Preface to Life Of The Party: The Novel, also available on Ao3.
> 
> *Chapter One also includes select dialogue from the introductory video, “Life of the Party LIVESTREAM - The Delphos Saga Announcement - Dungeons & Dragons.”
> 
> The bulk of the task involved cutting out-of-character moments such as dice rolls and commentary, transforming all the narration from second person to third person, and changing everything from present tense to past tense. I tried my best to preserve the canon story as much as possible, but I am in no way claiming that this is perfect!
> 
> Of course, that goal is not a completely feasible task. It was inevitable that I would have to insert some of my own creativity to fill in the gaps. Dialogue tags were the main example of this problem. For example, the following may be the most direct transcript of original audio:
> 
> "I’m so nervous!” Pandora said.
> 
> "Just relax,” Icarus responded.
> 
> "Okay,” Pandora replied.
> 
> But taking some creative liberties, dialogue tags can work to describe the physical acting/voice acting of player characters and set a mood:
> 
> Pandora gulped, wringing her hands. “I’m so nervous!”
> 
> "Just relax,” Icarus advised, offering a reassuring grin.
> 
> She let out a slow breath. “Okay…”
> 
> In these small ways, I had to insert a bit of my own interpretation of the events to fit a written format, walking the line between a fanwork and a reflection of pure canon.
> 
> This was also an obstacle for spellcasting and combat. While sometimes these actions are described in detail, there were many times where I had to create an original description of certain actions. (“Mayes used Uncanny Dodge to take Half Damage” vs “Mayes darted back, managing to avoid the worst of the blow as the creature spewed another jet of fire.”)
> 
> It is also important to note that the way people speak naturally is different from the way we write formally. Some of the dialogue or narration that flows well to our ears can translate awkwardly onto a page. I tried to keep everything as close as possible to the original spoken story, and to match all spellings with the Delphos Wiki, but if anybody notices spelling or grammatical errors please comment and let me know. This project has an astronomical word count, making it very hard for one person to edit, so please feel free to call out any errors in the comments. If anyone is inspired to go above and beyond to beta a full chapter or more, message me!
> 
> This project took absolute ages, but it was so much fun. Again, this is not at all 100% accurate to pure canon, but I gave it my best. It is my hope that this can be a resource for other fans to relive the series in a different way.
> 
> A huge huge thanks to the cast and production team of The Delphos Saga for producing this incredible story, and for giving me permission to post this!
> 
> Thank you, and enjoy.
> 
> <3

Welcome back to the land of Caldera, to the city of Erran.

Erran is the largest and one of the oldest cities on the entire continent. It was founded in the year 203 when the Goblinoid fleets landed on the western shores. The forces of Maglubiyet arrived in immeasurable numbers from distant lands over a vast ocean, and the question of how they sailed there, so far from where they came from, still puzzles researchers to this day. Once they landed, the war camps expanded and turned into a city. They named the city Erran, which translates to  _ first sight _ in Goblinoid.

The city of Erran is flanked by huge stone walls in a classical mediterranean style. The simplistic but beautiful buildings are easily distinguished by their clay tile roofs and wide flagstone avenues with hanging greenery and ornate trees. The stone used to build the city is a sandy golden brown, polished and worn with age.

The city has always been relatively wealthy, evident in the marble columns, wide squares, and ornate temples dotted all around. An air of protected calm hangs about the city of Erran, and it is common to see citizens sipping wine on terraces or in open tavernas, soaking in the evening sun in the throes of an incredible orange golden light from the sunset. The guards of Erran mingle with the common folk, allowing young children to try and lift their shields, or arm wrestling with would-be adventurers.

The streets are busy but relaxed, and alive with the sort of excitement that only comes from absolute comfort. This atmosphere comes from a long history of hobgoblin influence, whose firm but fair rule has seen off any unwanted invaders or monsters from the city for nearly half a millenia. Many of these red skinned, tall, and strong warriors find themselves in the service of Erran, manning the walls or the streets as sentries and guards.

The citizens themselves are happy and taken care of, and they regularly find enjoyment at The Maw, a colosseum arena where all manner of combat and sporting games take place year round.

This is where our story is set, a thousand years before the Dawnbringers, in the year 740. Our heroes are students at the prestigious Delphos Training Academy, part of a much larger college in Erran, dedicated to the art of war, military leadership, and martial magic. Of all the training academies in Erran, Delphos is one of the most difficult to get into. Studying at the academy means you were selected from hundreds of applicants for your talents and potential, and a position there holds quite a reputation around the city.

Many affluent families donate large sums of money in support of the academy if they have children attending, or some may argue, in order to get those children accepted into Delphos. On the other hand, students who wish to have a little coin for themselves may find part-time or short-term employment around their studies, with the academy’s assistance.

Students of Delphos are immediately recognizable by their uniform, a simple black tunic with intricate colored embroidery around the hems, and a gilded insignia badge in the shape of their house symbol. When in combat, serving on official duties, or formal events, this uniform also includes leather armour styled in the hobgoblin fashion, and a scaled leather pauldron painted gold, to be worn on the left shoulder.

The college is situated in the center of Erran, close to The Maw colosseum and the remnants of the Imperial Palace, which now houses many of the city's taverns, terraces, and stores. Delphos is made up of twelve simple but beautiful buildings, made of golden stone with terracotta roofs, around a large outside quad courtyard and training grounds. Amongst these twelve buildings are dormitories for the five different houses within the academy.

Houses are assigned to students after they are accepted into the college based on their talents and aspirations. All of the houses study physical combat, warfare techniques, and history, as well as having a choice of elective subjects and hobbies, though each has a speciality they are known for.

The houses are:

Domus Virtus- The House of Valor. Considered by many to be the most prestigious house of the college, Domus Virtus is dedicated to strength and virtue on the battlefield, studying martial combat techniques, and military leadership. Telling folks around Erran that you are a member of Domus Virtus is usually met with respect and admiration, but within the academy, there is known to be a little jealousy or mockery towards these students, and a culture of arrogance within the house itself. Virtus tends to attract a lot of loud and extroverted types, would-be heroes who either clash with one another or become something of a hive mind in their camaraderie.

Domus Medeis- The House of Arcana. Domus Medeis is the only house in Delphos to focus purely on magic, its practice in martial warfare and its place in politics. It’s common for students of Medeis to go on to become advisors to politicians, nobles, or even entire armies. Whilst the study of magic attracts all sorts, as a whole, the students of Medeis are dedicated, logical, and studious, often quieter and more reserved than their purely martial peers. Medeis has the second to least number of students of all the houses. Magic is difficult to master, and Medeis has the highest number of dropouts each year, with many students who are unable to keep up with the intense study and workload. As a result, those who do cut it tend to become extraordinary spellcasters.

Domus Callidus- The House of Cunning. Domus Callidus is the most selective house at Delphos, taking the least students each year and producing expert graduates with very unique skills. These students are trained in the arts of information acquisition, infiltration, and investigation, pushing their students towards targets of physical and mental excellency. Due to the unique nature of the skills taught in this house, many of the students in Callidus have resourceful, independent, and innovative personalities. Unlike the other houses they are educated largely privately from the other students, with only one student per tutor. Some members of this school join the city guard after graduation, but others go on to more secretive roles in a number of different organizations.

Domus Anterus- The House of Aegis. Domus Anterus educates students in all manner of battlefield support, from defense to medical aid. The sort of positions students in this house find themselves in are often backup roles to frontline fighters, and despite combat training, a number of graduates end up working in medical fields instead. Anterus looks for students with empathy, compassion and selflessness, although it is a mixed bag of extroverts and quieter students, and it’s often said this is the friendliest house at Delphos with little opposition or rivalry amongst the other houses. Bravery is also a key trait in these students, who are trained to focus on their personal task no matter what is going on around them on a battlefield.

Domus Imperatoria- The House of Strategy. Domus Imperatoria is a house of tacticians, strategists, and future commanders and politicians. Where Domus Virtus preaches leadership qualities, Imperatoria teaches its students to take control of a battlefield on a grand scale, as well as the skills needed to work a political room and negotiate with opposition and allies alike. Like Domus Virtus, students in this house often gain a strong sense of self-importance, as they are trained to be crucial players paramount in any significant force. They tend to be more erudite than the students of Virtus, placing a larger importance on study and knowledge than on physical training. The two houses share a strong rivalry over which produces  _ real _ leaders.

  
  


Students of Delphos are cared for comfortably by the school, with board, food, and equipment covered, and in return are expected to carry out contracts for the city as part of their training. We join our party out on one of these contracts, where our three heroes and three of their classmates are on an assignment outside of the city, in the hills and irrigated fields to the south of the walls. They have been tasked with neutralizing a threat to the farms there, a nest of carrion crawlers that had burrowed underground in the citrus groves of one of the many farm fields. Six students have been assigned to the task.

Pandora Di Rossi was a burnt orange female tiefling with long and wavy dark hair that fades into a red ombre. She had a pair of double horns that pushed her towards 5’9” while curving towards the back of her head, each one embellished with gold jewelry to match her golden freckles. She wore her black tunic uniform lined with a blue belt and hem, with the gold pin of the arcane house Domus Medeis on her chest. Studious and romantic, though rather insecure, Pandora strived to make her family proud. At 22 years old, she had been at Delphos for four years, after trying three times to get into the academy. Hundreds of years in the future, in the streets of the yet to be founded Mirrortail, another party of adventurers would pass by a statue of Pandora’s distantly descended relative, Vheren the champion.

Icarus Pelayo was a male blue triton, standing at 5’11” with quite a broad build and big, curly, navy hair. He had dark blue skin and bright blue eyes, with finned ears and translucent fins coming off his arms and legs. His uniform was embellished with a gold trim and belt, while his tunic had a slight tear at the chest. Domus Virtus, the House of Valor, was represented on his badge. At 24 years old, his personality was fun and bubbly, and he liked to believe the best in everyone. Accepted into the academy on his very first try, there were a few who suspected something shady at play, as he was adopted by one of the mentors employed at the academy. Though constantly trying to prove he got in on his own merit, he never held this suspicion against anyone, and was always proud of the abilities of his friends.

Meiro “Mayes” Hasagawa was an inquisitive nonbinary human reaching about 5’7”. Mayes was 21 years old, with medium length black and brown hair tied back into a loose bun. With a chubbier build, they wore the same tunic with red embellishments for the house of Domus Callidus, the House of Cunning. Tenacious, disciplined, and judgemental, Mayes was originally from one of the southern coastal islands of Vishima. Sent to study in Erran by their parents when they were 15, they didn’t get on with the education they received at the first school they attended. After learning about Delphos, they wanted to better themselves at the prestigious academy, and had been going through intense training there ever since.

These three students, as well as the other students accompanying them on the contract, all wore the same leather armour in hoplite style embellished with the emblem of the school.

They were joined by three peers, including Kyria Torres, a slender half-elven girl with a bob of chestnut hair, pointy ears, and olive skin. Under her Delphos standard armour, her uniform tunic sported the colors of Domus Anterus. With her was Johan Miria, a six foot tall half-orc with a muscular build, green skin, amber eyes, and long slicked back dark hair, shaved down on both sides. Despite his imposing figure, he seemed to sport a friendly grin most of the time. Also wearing the colors of Domus Anterus, he carried a great sword at his side. Last but not least was Alexis Leonida, a hobgoblin with red brown skin, a little taller than Johan, with dark eyes and short black hair. He fought with a spear and a lance, sporting the colors of the house Domus Imperitoria under a custom set of armour.

The body of one of the carrion crawlers laid beside them, while three more loomed ahead. The large, pale yellow and greenish creatures looked like centipedes the size of a person. They had two bulging eyes on stalks, eight tentacles protruding from the sides of their heads, and several rows of sharp and poisonous teeth inside their mouths. To the left, Johan was lying paralyzed on the ground from a large bite on his forearm. Kyria kneeled beside him, defending them both as Alexis stood over the body of the first carrion crawler, his lance driven into the corpse as it died. The students were a little worn down, but not yet defeated.

Icarus raised his glaive, marked with the holy symbol of Kord, aiming it towards the carrion crawler that seemed the weakest. Casting out his magic, he sent out a spell, but the creature seemed unfazed. Icarus decided to summon his spiritual weapon instead, and an old, worn sword appeared in the air as he sent it off. The weapon  _ swooshed _ across the field towards it, and three or four tentacles blasted off the creature’s face, taking two legs with it as the weapon swung past and cut through.

Mayes, taking partial cover behind a tree, assessed the battlefield. While they normally fought with two swords, they instead pulled out a hand crossbow, taking a shot at another creature as they gripped their katana in their other hand. The carrion crawler was blasted to pieces as the bolt fired straight through its head. Icarus cheered for his teammate as Mayes turned their sights on another creature, trying and failing to get a read on its next move.

On the other side of the field, poison was still pulsing through Johan. Alexis moved straight towards another carrion crawler with his spear, but the creature was wriggly enough to avoid the attack. Retaliating, it caught Alexis in its tentacles. The other students watched as Alexis froze, the poison coursing through his body before he fell paralyzed to the ground.

The creature moved from Alexis to bite Icarus, its teeth piercing into the triton. Having seen Icarus’s attempt at a spell earlier, Pandora decided to try for herself. She held out a long black chain pendant with an orange dowsing crystal on the end of it, swinging it back and forth. The sound of church bells rang through the mind of the creature, and it cringed at the sound wailing through its mind. Looking incredibly rough, though still standing, it shook its head from side to side with a screech.

Kyria, still defending Johan, sent over a protection spell for Icarus. As she did, the final carrion crawler darted up to Pandora in an attempt to ensnare her in its tentacles. She dodged, but the creature pressed on in fury to lash out with its jaws, landing a bite.

Icarus used his glaive to stab the one on him, swiping off a few more limbs before going for his spiritual weapon once more. The sword swung in, cleaving it into pieces as a nasty, viscous goop seeped out from the corpse and sunk into the dirt. He grinned at his allies, “We’re doing it! Come on!”

Suddenly, the ground started to shake. Tearing through the citrus grove, they saw the stocky, tawny skinned legs of a giant creature. It towered over them as it approached, nearly fifteen feet tall, its head near the tops of the trees. In its meaty fist was a crude wooden club the size of a person. It let out a guttural disgruntled roar, and globs of spit flew from its lips and landed around them as heavy as hailstones.

“Looks like we’re not done yet!” Icarus called.

Pandora was very taken aback. “This was not in the brief!”

Mayes mumbled to themselves as they took in the sight. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

The giant charged forward towards Icarus, swinging out with its club. The wood swung into the triton’s side, but Icarus let out a shock of lightning as the blow connected. The giant let out a nasty, deep howl of pain as the magic connected, reaching down to the ground for a second attack. Picking up a rock, it slung the projectile to land another hit against the triton.

Mayes moved from the tree to flank the last carrion crawler, swapping the crossbow for their other sword as they swung out with the katana. The creature went down with a single strike, and Mayes pressed on towards the giant to continue their attack. Using the other sword, they darted behind the giant and drove the weapon into its thigh as they called out to the others. “We’re taking this down for extracurricular activity, yeah?”

Icarus chuckled. “Yeah we are!”

Though Johan was still struggling, Alexis was able to shake off the paralysis and scramble to his feet. Looking to the hill giant and the scattered bodies of the defeated carrion crawlers, he shook his head. “No, no way! We’re not supposed to fight this thing. This wasn’t part of the assignment!”

He began to run away as Icarus called after. “We’re supposed to get rid of  _ the threat _ …”

“That was the carrion crawlers!” Alexis countered.

“This looks like a threat to me!” Mayes shot back.

Pandora looked very concerned. “They said to get rid of the carrion crawlers, they didn’t say anything about this!”

She tried to send out another magical attack, but her uncertainty in the fight caused her to throw the spell far too wide. Kyria looked panicked. She scooped her arms under Johan’s shoulders. “We, we have to get out of here! We’re not supposed to fight something like this, we can’t!”

As her pleas for retreat were met with shrugs from Icarus and Mayes, Kyria looked to the tiefling. “Come on, Pandora!”

Pandora put her hands on her head. “I don’t know what to do!”

Kyria began to drag Johan’s paralyzed body away from the fight, beginning to flee, and leaving the three remaining students to face off against the hill giant.

A wave of thunder shook through the air as Icarus sent out another spell, causing the hill giant to stumble as he slashed out with his spiritual weapon once more. The sword barely scratched the creature, and the giant seemed absolutely enraged as it turned to swing its club again, this time towards Mayes. They were able to partially dodge to avoid the worst of the blow as the club came down, and the giant picked up another rock. The stone flew past Pandora, hitting one of the citrus trees instead as the tielfing ducked.

“We’ve got this!” Icarus encouraged.

Mayes’ katana landed a powerful blow, the greek style kopis sword in their other hand following only to bounce off the tough skin of the giant.

Kyria disappeared from sight, still dragging Johan’s unresponsive body across the field. Alexis was long gone by now.

Pandora was still very conflicted. “We weren’t supposed to do this, we needed to take out the carrion crawlers and leave!”

Holding out her pendulum again, beams of green lightning shot from the crystal as she swung it. The attack went wide again. Though she was frustrated with herself, her heart simply wasn’t in the battle.

“They said neutralize the threat, so we gotta neutralize it,” Icarus replied, still grinning despite the blows he had taken. Swinging out the glaive again, he landed a solid strike as his spiritual weapon pierced the giant from the other side.

Infuriated and very confused, the creature swung out at Icarus with its club once again. Taking another hit of electricity as the club connected with the triton, it turned to swing at Mayes instead, who once again sidestepped just enough to avoid the worst of the blow as the wood bashed into them.

“Come on Pandora,” Mayes yelled back. “We’re in it now, we might as well finish it.”

Mayes moved in, running up the giant’s leg to gain momentum before swinging their katana right at the creature’s throat. Slashing across the flesh, a tidal wave of blood came pouring down its chest, the big and heavy body swaying as Mayes bounced off it. The giant fell backwards onto the ground.

Icarus’s jaw dropped. “Mayes!”

Mayes took a moment to blink at the corpse of the giant. “Icarus?”

Icarus threw up his hands in victory. “That was awesome!” 

Pandora was in a similar state of shock and disbelief. “Mayes, that was so cool…”

A bit surprised at themself, Mayes uncertainly raised their hands towards Icarus for a high five. Icarus gladly obliged before shaking their hand and patting them on the shoulder with a grin. “Yeah!”

“Yeah…” Mayes echoed, still processing. “Yeah! We just...”

“See?” Icarus grinned. He turned back to the remaining student. “You alright Pandora?”

Pandora had wide eyes. “No! I don’t, I…. Agh…?”

“That was awesome.”

“That was… a lot!”

“But we did it!” Icarus countered.

“I mean, you guys did it,” Pandora replied. “You guys were amazing… I didn’t hit anything.”

Icarus pressed on. “You did so good with the carrion crawlers though! We wouldn’t have done it without you.”

Pandora made an unconvinced sound in reply. “I don’t know… are we going to get in trouble?”

Mayes frowned at the corpse. “I don’t know… We should, we should get some proof that this thing is dead, right?”

Pandora looked at the dead giant, its blood seeping out into the dusty ground, leaving a massive, dark red puddle stained under the trees. “Oh, we’re gonna get in so much trouble! We’re in so much trouble!”

“Think of the destruction it could have caused if we’d left it,” Icarus reasoned.

“It’s just extra curricular activity, you know?” Mayes repeated.

“Sure,” the triton chuckled.

“I’m sure our tutors will be proud of us for going above and beyond, right?”

Pandora’s eyes widened, and she pressed her hands to her chest as she gasped. “We have to tell our tutors…”

“Yeah,” Icarus shrugged.

“Oh, we have to tell our  _ tutors _ …”

“Come on, it’ll be fine. This guy could have hurt a lot of people.”

“Exactly,” Mayes agreed.

Pandora’s voice was still uncertain. “I suppose you’re right…”

Icarus elbowed her with a grin. “We did good!”

Mayes pressed on. “We should get some kind of proof, right?”

“Well, I mean, what’s more proof than a giant body in the middle of a field?”

Pandora surveyed the body. “Do you propose we drag it back to school?”

“No, I just don’t…” Mayes frowned at the corpse again, considering.

“Is there something on it we can take?”

There was the club, but taking that would be like dragging a heavy toddler along. The giant was wearing a little loincloth, its massive teeth jutting out of its jaw in all directions. They were nasty, blunted, and filthy. It seemed the creature had been chewing on rotten meat, stinky breath expelling slowly out of the corpse’s mouth.

“We could take a tooth?” Icarus proposed.

Mayes tilted their head, considering. “That seems like the least gross option.”

“It’s pretty gross, still…” Pandora warned.

“Yup.”

Icarus smashed his glaive into its face, and a bunch of teeth flew out, a few in shards, and one or two intact, the weapon leaving yet another wound around its face.

Pandora leaned back. “Oh, that’s so disgusting!”

“Yeah…” Icarus grimaced. “Yeah.”

Mayes gave the man a look. “You’re carrying that, right?”

Icarus sighed, resigning himself to the task. “Yeah.”

The tooth was at least six inches, a blunted molar with an awful stench. Icarus picked it up, holding it far out in front of him.

“We should go,” Pandora advised. “I don’t know if Johan is okay.”

“Yeah, we need to go check on them.”

“We should go find those guys,” Mayes agreed.

“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Icarus assured them.

Mayes grinned. “Seeing as they sounded the retreat so soon.”

“Yeah, well, they had two injured, you know? It was a wise thing to do.”

Mayes didn’t seem convinced. “I guess.”

“They know tactics.”

“They sure do.”

The trio began making their way back to the school. They walked back up through the irrigated fields, picking between the hedge rows, grape vines, lemon trees, apricot trees, and olive groves. The late afternoon sunlight filtered through as they went, leaving a beautiful speckled light across the path.

  
  


As they approached the city, they reached the huge crenellated limestone walls surrounding Erran, the winter sun shining brightly off the side of them. They were about fifty feet high, and roughly fifteen feet across at the top, allowing four people to walk abreast with ease. Where the walls shifted direction, there were short towers, bearing braziers and banners as well as large catapults and ballistas, a permanent defense on the outside of the city they called home.

They entered through two huge gates, permanently open but heavily guarded. The guards allowed people to enter and exit freely, occasionally checking through whatever cargo various carts pulled in. The trio stolled in easily in their uniforms, a few guards glancing over in interest only to nod and smile at them. Though they seemed rather confused by the giant tooth the triton was carrying, they had seen much stranger from Delphos students.

“Hey!” Icarus greeted. “You’re doing a great job, guys.”

One gave a nod in greeting. “Yeah, you too…”

To one side of the main road was a colossal trench, which appeared to disappear underground as it reached the city gate. The ground covering could be lifted at any time, allowing the naval fleet to sail through from the ocean side and across to the Shaiste in the East. Most of the time, as it was now, it was covered to become part of the road. They were now just inside the main gates of the city, strolling past the rows of gold stone buildings and numerous oxen drawn carts calling out to new arrivals, offering fast passage through the streets for just a silver per passenger. They were about an hour or so away from the academy by foot, and a cart would take them there in less than half the time.

“Should we take a cart?” Pandora wondered.

Icarus stared at the tooth. “Yeah.”

Mayes grinned. “You don’t want to be holding that for very long, do you?”

“No. It’s kind of gross. Smells bad,” Icarus lifted the tooth up in front of Mayes’ face.

“Don’t.”

Icarus chuckled and lowered the tooth.

The three of them paid a silver each to hop onto a cart. There was a goblin as their driver sat on a bench in the front, looking tiny with the reins in their hands. “Where to?” he squawked.

“The academy, please,” Pandora replied.

“Which one?”

“Delphos,” Mayes answered.

“Ah, should of known from the uniforms.”

“Should of.”

The oxen began moving. While the goblin looked excited, the oxen was merely plodding on ahead at a leisurely pace as they settled in.

Icarus grinned at the others. “That was exciting.”

Mayes nodded. “Yeah, that was…”

“You kicked ass.”

“You did,” Pandora agreed. “You were amazing.”

“Thank you,” they replied. “It’s a good way to put what we’ve learned to use, I suppose.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Icarus concurred.

“And your reputation precedes both of you,” Pandora followed.

Mayes raised a brow. “Reputation?”

“Well, I mean, like, I heard about you guys. I mean, obviously we hadn’t met each other before today, but I’d heard a lot about you. About your fighting styles, and just, how good you are on the battlefield. And, oh, it was so cool to see it in practice!”

“To be fair, I always hear about how you guys are like… top of your classes, so.”

Icarus smiled at the other two in the cart. “Yeah, I’ve heard of both of you. The way you cast your spells was so good,” he grinned to Pandora. “Like, the technique behind it was great, but like…”

Pandora frowned. “Yeah, the execution…”

“No, don’t worry about it, they were just really wily. It happens!”

“Yeah, but not like four times in a row.”

“It can.”

“Today it did.”

“Come on, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Icarus pressed.

She sighed. “I don’t know, I have to do better...:”

“It was a scary situation, but,” Mayes shrugged, “Now you know how you’ve done it once, so… you know how you can do it better next time.”

“I know  _ never _ to do it that way again.”

“Exactly,” Icarus smiled.

The goblin looked over his shoulder. “You kids new to the academy, then?”

There was a bit of a pause before the three answered in tandem. “...No.”

“Oh. So, you’ve been there a long time?”

“A few years,” Icarus replied.

“Three years,” Mayes followed.

“You must see a lot of students, huh?”

“Quite a lot, quite a lot,” their driver nodded. “Yeah.”

“Did some other Delphos students come through here recently?”

“Yes. Oh yeah, they took one of the fast carts, super fast carts, heading back to the college.”

“How did they look?”

“Oh, they looked fine, I think. There were three of them. One of them wasn’t really walking?”

“A half-orc?” Pandora pressed.

“Yeah, with the shaved head?”

“Was he okay? I hope he’s okay…”

“I’m sure the people back at the school can help, at least,” Mayes reasoned.

“Yeah,” Icarus followed. “And Kyria was doing her best to try and, you know, get them feeling better, so.”

“Yeah, she was doing great,” Pandora sighed.

“Exactly. He’ll be fine.”

“I’ll speed it up for you,” the goblin offered. He whipped down on the ox with the reins, but the animal continued to plod on rather slowly. They carried on at the pace for close to half an hour, taking the main passage through the center of Erran towards Delphos Academy.

The academy itself stood close to The Maw coliseum, the city’s grand arena, and the old Imperial Palace, which had become something of a leisure spot for the town where all the taverns, terraces, and bars had opened in the old archways there. The cart rolled along, bumping gently over the flagstones as they passed row after row of simple but beautiful architecture, the landscape made of trees and greenery. The afternoon was growing late, and the first signs of sunset were already coloring the sky.

They passed many tavernas and shops, temples to Kord, Sehanine, Pelor, and Sune dotted around the city, as well as houses to Bane and of course Maglubiyet, all well maintained and busy even at this hour of the day. Bronze lanterns hung above doors and from window sills, throwing a golden light over every stoop.

Eventually, they rolled up to a stop outside Delphos Academy. The school was recognizable by the flags hanging above the front entrance, each bearing the sigil of one of its five houses, and by two statues of hobgoblin warriors guarding the steps inside. Twelve buildings surrounded the large outside courtyard and training grounds, where the trio had studied for a handful of years. Amongst the twelve buildings were classrooms, a forum, a refectory, libraries, a bathhouse, an infirmary, as well as the dormitories and leisure areas of each private house, each decorated in beautiful mosaics of their house colors.

Waiting for them on the steps, they saw Alexis and Master Sebaste Auron, the satyr professor in charge of their contract for today.

Icarus was still holding out the tooth. “Hi!”

Mayes gave a little salute. “Hey.”

“Alexis, are you okay?” Pandora worried.

Alexis glanced at her from the steps. “Yeah.”

“How’s Johan?” Mayes asked.

Alexis shrugged. “He’ll live.”

“You guys did great today, by the way,” Icarus grinned.

“Hm.”

Sebaste looked the trio up and down over the top of his small brown glasses, frowning as Icarus held out the tooth. “Yes, you should… you should probably cover that up.”

“Sure,” Icarus nodded.

Sebaste took a small cloth, placing it over the tooth. “And, perhaps you should… come inside?”

Pandora looked very concerned. “Master, are we in trouble?”

“You should just… come quickly. You’re going to the Domina’s office.”

“The Domina’s office?!”

“Come on.”

“Sure,” Icarus grinned, starting up the stairs.

“Oh, we’re in trouble!” Pandora panicked. “We’re in so much trouble!”

“It could be a good thing,” Mayes countered. “It could be a thank you for what we’ve done.”

Sebaste took off, and Alexis started to follow, but the satyr turned around to stop him. “That’s all we’ll need from you, thank you Alexis.”

Alexis grunted before heading off the other way.

“See you later!” Icarus called after.

“Yeah…” Alexis gave the triton a bit of a look before grunting again and turning off, walking down the corridor in the other direction.

“He’s a really great guy,” Icarus assured the others.

“A bit stuck up,” Mayes countered.

“Eh.”

They were taken through the corridors to the waiting room of the Domina’s office, the headmistress of the school. They were told to sit in a few waiting room chairs, the door to the Domina’s room closed as they sat.

Icarus leaned into Pandora for a second, nudging her comfortingly with his arm. “Don’t worry.”

“I’ve never been sent to the Domina’s office before!”

“It could be a good thing,” Mayes repeated. “We killed something dangerous, and it could be…  _ hey, thanks for going above and beyond _ .”

“Don’t be so scared of her,” Icarus advised. “She’s really nice.”

“I mean, the contract said  _ neutralize the threat. _ Maybe the threat was the giant all along, and it was a test to see who would stick around?”

“Or, we just, you know… we helped a farmer who might have been hurt, or worse.”

“Yeah.”

“We helped a farmer, we helped a farmer,” Pandora repeated, trying to convince herself.

“Yeah, exactly,” Icarus smiled.

Mayes leaned back in their chair. “There’s no use stressing over it.”

“It’s worth getting in trouble to help someone.”

Pandora did not seem calmed. “I’ve never been in trouble before, I don’t like getting in trouble!”

“It’ll be fine.”

As he reassured her, the door to the waiting room opened. The door opened quietly, but it was so quiet in the room already it was enough to make them jump. A procession of their three mentors entered the room.

First, Pandora’s mentor, Alexander Escholme, a tall and handsome man in his late thirties with olive skin and a luscious mop of dark hair. He had dark eyes and a beard, wearing a long robe with a book at his hip. He gave Pandora a reassuring glance as he passed through, but didn’t say anything. Pandora tried to catch his eye, and whimpered as he walked past.

Next, Icarus’s mentor, Lorakai Avitus. A half-orc in his forties with rich green skin, shaved salt and pepper hair with a short crop on top, a plaited beard, and a brass prosthetic leg, he walked with a cane to shuffle inside. He had a gold eyepatch over one eye, and he did not look up at his student as he entered, clearing his throat as he entered the Domina’s office after Alexander. Icarus tried to point to the tooth as he walked past, grinning.

Finally, Mayes’ mentor, Citra Bellatore. A female earth genasi in her late thirties, Citra had dark grey hair in a short ponytail, gemstone blue eyes, and smooth skin that appeared to be made out of iron. She walked in with her head and shoulders up, moving proudly as she looked over to Mayes and gave them a curt nod. Mayes straightened up and nodded back, earning a slight smile from their mentor as they did so. Citra looked quite smug as she walked into the Domina’s office.

The mentors were inside from another ten minutes as the students sat outside in silence. Pandora continued to stew in her worry as the others made conversation.

“Icarus, I see you at the coliseum sometimes, don’t I?”

The triton grinned back at Mayes. “Yeah! You go to the coliseum?”

“Yeah, at least once a week.”

“We should go together!”

“Sure, I just… I take a lot of notes, so. Might not be properly engaged. I’m not really great company for it, but.”

“That’s okay, we’re just watching a thing together.” He turned to Pandora. “Do you wanna come?”

She glanced up. “To the coliseum?”

“Yeah!”

“I, I guess I could… I have a lot of studying to do.”

“It counts as studying,” Mayes shrugged.

“Yeah, Mayes is gonna be writing, so you can bring your books as well,” Icarus offered.

She considered. “I guess…”

“Come on, it’ll be fun!”

“Okay. Let’s see what they say here first. Let’s see if I’m still enrolled in this school after this.”

“I’m sure you will be,” Mayes chuckled as Icarus bumped the tiefling again. “If it’s good news, maybe we can go as a celebration.”

“That’d be amazing,” Icarus grinned. “So, you write a lot when you’re there?”

“I take notes.”

“Why?”

“Ah, when the fighters trip each other up, and find the little spots that knock each other down, I keep eyes on it.”

“Right.”

“It’s good theory for application later.”

“Huh. Find their weak points.”

“Exactly. It’s kind of my specialty.”

“But why would our mentors come through and not say anything to us?” Pandora interrupted. The other two laughed a bit at Pandora’s nerves as she continued. “If we did a good thing, they would have said so, no?”

“Eh,” Icarus shrugged.

“I don’t know about your mentors, but Citra’s got my back,” Mayes replied.

Icarus nodded in agreement. “That’s kind of Lorakai’s thing.”

Pandora shifted in her seat. “Oh, I don’t want to disappoint Alexander… That would be the worst, to disappoint him…”

“You are, like, top of your class, right?”

“Yeah…”

“I’ve heard a lot about you. So, I wouldn’t think you’d be disappointing him.”

“But he didn’t say anything,” Pandora pressed. “Oh, what if he’s mad?”

Sabaste appeared, clearing his throat as the door to the Domina’s office opened. “Come inside.”

“Sure,” Icarus hopped to his feet.

Just as they got to the door, Sebaste put out a hand. “Best behavior. They’re reached a decision.”

“A decision?” Pandora worried. “What about?”

“Please come in.”

“Sure,” Icarus smiled.

The three entered, Mayes giving a slight bow to Sebaste as they filed in. It was a relatively small office without much in the way of natural light, save for one small window at the back. The shelves were lined with books to each side, and their three mentors stood around the Domina’s desk, where she also stood. An older looking hobgoblin lady with dark hair up in a neat bun with a golden olive branch twisted through it, she wore a long green and gold robe. With a very stern expression, she looked over the three of them silently and quite judgmentally. They hadn’t had much contact with her in their time at Delphos, but she looked at them as if she knew everything about them.

“Good afternoon,” Icarus smiled.

“Good afternoon. Please, take a seat,” she gestured to three seats in front of her desk.

“Sure.”

They sat, Mayes offering another little bow before sitting.

The Domina addressed them all. “We’ve heard from your classmate what happened, but we’d like to hear it in your own words first. Please go ahead and explain what happened.”

Icarus nodded. “Sure, we were- ”

Words began tumbling out of Pandora. “We were trying to fight the carrion crawlers, and we almost had them, and then, a giant comes stomping through, and then- ”

“It’s okay- ”

“And then Johan was down and then, they said we need to neutralize the threat, but the threat was the carrion crawlers, and then, and then- ”

Alexander put a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. “It’s okay.”

Pandora blushed.

Mayes offered their own explanation, their voice slow and confident. “The carrion crawlers were easy enough to defeat and neutralize, there just happened to be another bigger threat in the area.”

“And we weren’t happy to leave, knowing that it might do some more damage,” Icarus followed.

“Yeah, with one definitely paralyzed classmate, it makes sense that the rest of them may have wanted to sound the retreat, but…”

“We weren’t happy to do that.”

“Something that big and dangerous, no, absolutely not.”

The Domina pursued her lips. “Hm, okay. And you are aware that Mr. Leonida was in charge of this contract? And when he called the retreat, following correct orders, you should have followed.”

“And I respect that,” Icarus replied. “But it… in my opinion, was a stupid shout.”

Pandora looked to the triton in surprise. “Icarus!”

The Domina stared back at Icarus for a moment, but his face was firm and resolute. She sighed. “Is there anything else you’d like to say for yourselves?”

Mayes tilted their head. “Eh. No offense, but sometimes the people in charge of stuff don’t always make the best calls.”

Pandora cringed again.

Lorakai looked to Domina Octavia. “Come on. You’ve seen exactly the wording in the contract, you know- ”

Octavia made a sharp noise, waving out a hand to shush him before addressing the trio of students once more. “Well, we have discussed, and having heard your cases, we have decided that the three of you… are ready for your final exam.”

Pandora’s eyebrows raised. “What?”

“Oh my Gods…” Mayes brightened, sharing a grin with Icarus as the triton leaned forward with interest.

“It was brave, what you did,” Octavia continued. “And smart. And whilst we would have rather the six of you stood together as a team, well… you are absolutely correct, Mr. Pelayo. The threat was not neutralized until you took down that hill giant.”

Mayes silently slipped their hand between the seats, offering a sneaky high five to the triton. Icarus accepted, not taking his eyes off the Domina and still grinning. “Are you kidding me?”

“You mean we’re not getting expelled?” Pandora clarified.

“Oh, no no dear, not expelled,” Octavia assured her. “But if you don’t think you’re ready for your exams it's understandable, you can wait until next year- ”

“No!” The three of them chorused.

“Now is good,” Mayes continued.

“I realize this is quite last minute,” Octavia apologized, “As they will be coming up this week.”

“This week…” Pandora blanched.

“Yeah! No, that’d be great!” Icarus beamed.

“This week, there is so little time, I need to start studying immediately! How many exams are there? And how many papers do we need to study for? And, is there a practical exam involved? There’s so much I need to do, there’s so much I need to do…”

“Hey, take a breath,” Icarus put a hand on Pandora’s shoulder, giving her another comforting smile. “Take a breath.”

Octavia eyed the tiefling. “Ms. Di Rossi?”

Pandora looked up.

“Take a breath.”

She did.

“The three of you, we felt, worked very well together. And as you know, exams are taken in groups, so we thought we would match the three of you together. If you’re comfortable with that, most exams are taken with a student from House Anterus, but… if the three of you would like to work together, as none of the others from your group today will be proceeding to their final exams.”

“Sure,” Mayes chuckled.

“That’s perfect,” Icarus smiled.

“Well then,” Octavia nodded at the three tutors, “You can thank your mentors for their input.”

Their mentors were standing proudly behind their students, nodding at each other with pride. Citra looked very stern, but there was a tug of a smile on her face. Icarus leaned back to look up at Lorakai, grinning ear to ear. Lorakai ruffled the triton’s hair a bit.

“With that, as you know, I’m a very busy woman. Your mentors will take it from here.”

“Thank you, thank you so much for the opportunity,” Pandora replied.

“Yeah,” Icarus chuckled.

“Thank you kindly,” Mayes followed.

Icarus held out the tooth. “Do you want a trophy?”

Octavia reached forward with curiosity, picking the cloth off the tooth before cocking her head slightly. She held out her hand, and Icarus passed it over.

“It was proof,” Mayes explained.

The Domina turned it in her hand.

“Sorry, it’s really gross,” Pandora offered.

“It’s cool though, right?” Icarus grinned.

Octavia shrugged. “There’s the proof you looked for, Alexander.” She put it on her desk heavily.

“It can be a paperweight,” Icarus smiled.

“I think it might be,” she replied, the tug of a smile pulling at the corner of her lips. “Now, out.”

Pandora scurried out as Mayes thanked the Domina once more. They headed back outside and into the main corridors of the school, followed by their mentors.

Lorakai slapped Icarus on the back quite hard. “Well done, kid.”

“Thanks,” Icarus chuckled. “Did what you would’ve done.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Alexander walked next to his student. “Pandora, are you okay?”

She sighed. “It was awful, it was so terrible, and all of my spells went wide. And I know we practiced this, we practiced this last week, and it was… like it all just went out of my head, like…”

“She’s talking down about herself,” Icarus interjected. “Sunspot did great.”

Alexander smiled a bit. “I’m sure you did. We can practice more.”

“Please,” Pandora agreed. “That would be nice.”

Citra gave Mayes an approving nod. “Never had any doubts.”

Mayes nodded back. “That’s what I thought.”

“Right, so,” Lorakai turned to address the students. “We thought, maybe… you’d like to all get a meal together. To celebrate. Didn’t we?”

The other two mentors looked at each other in a way that probably meant  _ we haven’t discussed this, but I suppose so. _

“Sure, I said we should get some celebrations if we weren’t in trouble,” Mayes agreed.

Icarus nodded with excitement. “Yeah!”

“I’m so glad we’re not in trouble,” Pandora sighed. “Dinner would be really nice.”

“Yeah it would, that’d be great.”

“So, how do you feel about going out to the Imperial Palace?” Lorakai offered. “One of the tavernas?”

“Oh, that's exciting,” Pandora nodded.

“That’s fancy,” Icarus grinned.

Mayes was already planning. “I can get that spicy fish…”

“But Lorakai, you always tell me it’s too expensive there,” the triton grinned.

“It’s a celebration,” he reasoned.

“We’re doing our final exams, after all,” Mayes agreed.

“You’re doing your final exams,” Lorakai nodded. “This could be your last two weeks at Delphos.”

The students were silent for a moment as the realization set in. “That’s coming up really quick,” Pandora worried.

“So take an hour, meet us out on the steps?”

“Sure,” Icarus grinned.

“We’ll see you there.”

“See you there.”

As the mentors walked off, they could see their tutors deliberating with Lorakai about the dinner. Pandora watched Alexander as he left.

“I don’t know what you’re worried about,” Mayes glanced over to the tiefling. “He seems like a nice guy.”

Pandora was still staring after him. “Yeah, he’s the best.”

“Well, perhaps we should all go and get the giant stink off of us.”

“Yeah, we stink.”

“Because, if we’re going out, I don’t want to smell like this.”

“No,” Icarus agreed. “And I kind of want to just… take a few as well. Because woah, that took it out of me.”

“Yeah, I need a bath,” Pandora followed.

“This is so exciting though. Come on, this is exciting.”

Pandora gave a small smile at the triton. “Teammates.”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah, wild,” Mayes chuckled.

“So we can go to The Maw together,” Icarus decided.

Pandora nodded. “We can go to The Maw, yeah.”

“That’d be nice,” Mayes agreed.

“Right, let’s go get ready,” Icarus smiled.

  
  


They recovered slightly, fixing their hair and getting clean, scrubbing off in the bathhouses. Icarus took a moment to float in the water before reconvening with the others and stepping out to the front steps of the building where their mentors were waiting for them. The sun was just starting to dip down below the city walls, and it was beginning to grow dark outside. Their mentors seemed happy to see them, and Icarus bounced over to pat Lorakai on the shoulder.

“Hey!”

“Hi kid. Ready for a good night out?”

“Yeah.”

“You deserve it. It’s not every day someone takes on a hill giant.”

“That was wild, right?”

“Made some friends?”

“Yeah!”

“Good.”

“This is Pandora and Mayes.”

Lorakai held out a big orcish hand, giving Mayes a shake. “Good to meet you.”

Pandora held out her hand next. “Pandora.”

He gave her a shake. “Nice to meet you. Let’s get going over to the Imperial Square.”

Their mentors walked a few steps ahead, chatting casually amongst themselves as they headed over to the Imperial Palace Square, only a stone’s throw away, about a fifteen minute walk from the school. They moved to the vast courtyard that used to be a part of the palace, filled with golden archways and columns down the middle. Just inside, it had been turned into a variety of shops and tavernas, the middle of the square becoming something of a garden with bricked in trees and bushes, and people sitting around on benches by fountains. There were huge stretches of terrace, with dozens of tables dotted out, people drinking, and music going on merrily in the background.

The three mentors pointed to a few different places, bickering amongst themselves over where to stop.

“No, no, we’re going to the Elia and Ampeli, that's the final word.” Lorakai turned around to glance at the students trailing behind. “That alright with you three?” Then he waved a hand, changing his mind about their input. “It doesn’t matter, it’s final word.”

“Sounds perfect,” Pandora agreed.

Lorakai led them over to the Elia & Ampeli Taverna, a spot with a picture of an olive vine on the front and lots of little olives painted on quite beautifully, with a mosaic of the name. It had an open front with half a dozen tables outside. The mentors brought them inside through a small wooden door, to a quiet and cozy atmosphere with a couple of tables occupied inside. There was a large wooden bar, and some music playing in the back from a lyre player sitting on a stool.

A half-elf hobgoblin hurried up to them, with reddish skin and pointy short elf ears. “My name’s Erella, I’ll be your server for tonight!”

“Nice to meet you,” Pandora smiled.

“Table for…” she counted them up, “Six. Come on, come through…” She sat them in a cozy corner booth as Icarus’s stomach grumbled. They filed in, their mentors on one side and the students on the other. Icarus nudged Lorakai’s false leg under the table. He looked a bit confused for a moment, glancing under the table before tutting at his student.

Lorakai ordered a feast of food, with plates of sticky rice in vine leaves, and all the dolmades they could eat. There were steaming mint tomato and onion fritters, thick split pea yellow dip as a creamy sauce for dipping chunks of crusty bread. Grilled veal, grilled spicy fish, spit roasted beef, flatbreads, and meatballs in tomato sauce filled the table. Their mentors were sparing no expense for the celebratory feast.

Icarus’s jaw dropped at the plates of food before him. “Oh, thank you!”

Mayes locked eyes with Citra. As they both lunged for the plate of spicy fish, Citra swiped the plate from their grasp. She returned Mayes’ look of betrayal with a shrug before serving herself and glancing at the others. “Do you want to try?”

She made sure to serve everyone else at the table before handing Mayes the last piece.

Mayes looked dejectedly at the plate. “My favorite…”

“Should have been faster.”

They sighed. “I tried.”

Icarus slid his fish onto Mayes’ plate.

Mayes gave the triton a grateful look. “ _ Thank you _ .”

Citra shook her head. “They don’t deserve it.”

“Yeah they do!” Icarus defended. “You should have seen the way they took down the big giant today.”

“Oh, it was so amazing,” Pandora agreed.

“It was so cool, you got the final blow on it.”

“Yeah, the killing blow.”

“And with the  _ swoosh _ !”

“Across the neck, and then all the blood came out!”

Mayes gave a proud smile as the other two sang their praises.

Alexander chuckled at them all. “You realized you were still breaking rules, yeah?”

“Technically, we weren’t,” Icarus defended. “We were told to  _ neutralize the threat _ , it did not specifically say carrion crawlers, so when the big thing came out, that in itself was a threat that could have taken out anyone that was in the area that wasn’t us.”

“The fine print is on our side,” Mayes nodded.

“The fine print is on our side,” Alexander conceded. “But you did disobey a command from your strategist.”

“It was a bad strategy,” Icarus countered.

“It was a bad strategy,” Mayes agreed.

“In warfare, that doesn’t matter. You need to pay closer attention,” Alexander warned them. “But it worked out in your favor, so don’t even worry about it.”

“Sending mixed messages here, huh?”

Icarus chuckled.

“Hm, everyone’s old enough here to drink…” Alexander flagged down a large plate with flagons of ale and wine. “Let loose, celebrate, you might as well.”

Icarus loved food, and he wanted to try everything. He began piling dolmades onto his plate.

“Just… would you like the plate?” Pandora offered.

“Yeah, okay. Did anyone else want any?”

Pandora flagged the waiter. “More dolmades please!”

Erella rushed over with more. “When it’s on your school bill, no one cares,” she winked.

They dug in.

“Thank you all so much for this,” Pandora smiled. “This is such a treat.”

“Well it’s not a problem, we are celebrating something,” Alexander replied. “And, like Lorakai said, this might be your last two weeks in the school.”

“So exciting,” Icarus beamed.

“So strange to think, though,” Pandora followed.

“Yeah.”

“I can’t imagine not being here.”

“Bet you’re all gonna miss us,” Mayes grinned.

“Well yeah, obviously we’re gonna miss you guys,” Lorakai replied.

Icarus chuckled. “I’m gonna go  _ so far _ , Lorakai.”

Citra looked Mayes up and down. “Might miss you. Could move on to another student. Doubt they’ll have your potential.”

Mayes gave a small grin. “I doubt that too.”

Alexander slowly picked at his food. “I know Pandora’s aspirations, what about you two? Where do you see yourselves after graduating?”

“I’d like to get some... real world experience,” Mayes replied. “And then, I’m gonna go home.”

“Where is home?” Pandora wondered.

“Vishima.”

“Oh, Vishima?”

“One of the sister islands, down south.”

“I’ve never been. What's it like?”

Mayes smiled a bit. “It’s, uh… we’ve got, like, one big city, and the rest of it’s pretty wild. A lot of land, just owned by random people who think that makes them in charge. But, it’s beautiful. Everyone there is very respectful of the wildlife.”

“That’s nice.”

“It’s home. But, here is nice too. It’s a beautiful city, I’m glad to be here.”

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” Icarus grinned.

“You guys born and bred?”

“I’m from here, yeah.”

“Yeah, so am I,” Pandora followed. “Never left Erran.”

“Fair, fair,” Mayes nodded. “Would you like to travel somewhere else?”

“Yeah, just to see other places, and learn about other cultures and other people.”

“It’d be a lot of fun,” Icarus followed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do after I graduate.”

“Just… go with the flow?” Mayes suggested.

“Eat more dolmades?” Pandora teased.

“Yeah, I’m gonna travel all of Caldera trying to find the best dolmades,” Icarus declared with a laugh.

“You’re probably gonna find ‘em here, kid,” Lorakai chuckled.

“Yeah, I reckon so.”

“Mission over,” Mayes shrugged. “I guess you’re going to have to think of something better.”

“I don’t know,” Icarus thought. “I’m either gonna join the Temple, or… army? I don’t know. Never really had a plan before I came here, so.”

“You’re gonna go far. No matter where you go,” Lorakai nodded. “Even if it’s just back to the Temple.”

Icarus chuckled. “Why you say it like that?”

Lorakai shrugged, giving his student a bit of a look.

  
  


They ate their fill, their mentors chatting with them idly, though mostly to themselves. They sat inside the stone walls nicely painted in Errani designs, greenery hanging around at the top of the bar in potted plants, though not much in the way of windows to the outside. Partway through the meal, they heard screaming from outside the tavern.

Pandora glanced up. “What’s that?”

“I’m gonna go check that out,” Icarus stood.

“Yeah, same,” Mayes followed.

They headed out, pushing open the wooden doors, a bit worried. A crowd was forming in the middle of the Imperial Square.

“Is everything alright?” Icarus wondered.

After a moment, the students realized that the crowd was not screaming in terror, but in excitement. Amongst them were flashes of gladiatorial armour. The crowd of people gathered started to split slightly, and they saw four gladiators coming up through the square and towards the taverns.

Icarus gasped, reaching out to hold his friends as he reeled.

Pandora gave him a worried look. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh my Gods, it’s the gladiators!”

“Gladiators?”

“Yeah, from The Maw!” Icarus looked as if he was about to burst from excitement.

There was a human man, about 5’8”, with dark skin and waves of long dark hair swept over one shoulder, and a white chiton with leather armour at the top and a battleaxe strapped to his back. A short elven woman was also in the crowd, with olive skin and long, poker straight red hair. She had strong shoulders and muscles to rival her male companions, wearing a dark orange cloak. After her was a lizardfolk person with sandy colored scales and black spots, wearing a simple black tunic with gold pauldrons and braces and a simple quarterstaff slung over his back.

Finally, there was a very tall hobgoblin with dark red furred skin, heterochromatic eyes in green and honey, and plenty of scars including one across his left brow. Wearing gilded armour and pteruges with a half cape of lion fur, he seemed to be the focus of the crowd’s attention.

Icarus squeaked. “Oh my Gods, oh my Gods, it’s him, it’s…”

“It’s who?” Pandora pressed. “Who is that?”

“It’s, it’s…”

“It’s The Lion of Erran,” Mayes answered.

“It’s The Lion of Erran,” Icarus choked.

Pandora squinted into the crowd. “The Lion of Erran?”

“Yeah! He’s like, The. Coolest. Gladiator. In. The. Ring.”

“Damianos Thalasse?”

_ “Yes!” _

“He is, by far, the most entertaining of them to watch,” Mayes agreed.

“Yeah, he’s so good!”

“I’ve never seen him fight, but I’ve read about him,” Pandora offered.

Icarus gaped at her. “Okay, we’re definitely taking you there. He is a delight to watch.”

Icarus was rocking anxiously on his feet, wrapping his arms around his chest.

“Go say hi,” Mayes encouraged.

“No!”

“Go say hello,” Pandora pressed.

“No no no…”

“Hey!” Mayes called out, waving. “Mr. Lion of Erran? Hello?”

But he was quite distracted in the crowd. Under his arm, Damianos was holding a lion head helmet, dipping pens in inkpots to sign various arms and outfits. However, the elven woman glanced up at the shout, and looked the three of them up and down with recognition. “Hey! Delphos students!”

“Hi!” Icarus beamed. “I love your fighting style, by the way.”

She separated from the crowd, walking over. “Thank you!”

“You’re so cool.”

“Name’s Damaris.”

“Yeah!” Icarus beamed.

“Lovely to meet you Damaris,” Pandora nodded.

“And you,” the gladiator replied.

“Um, I’m Icarus!” the triton boy offered.

“Icarus.”

“Mayes,” the final student nodded. “You know, if you move the heels of your feet a little bit further back when you stand, people can knock you down less easily.”

She raised a long, thin eyebrow, looking very unimpressed. “Oh.”

“I think you do great,” Icarus assured her. “The way you took down the trio, a couple of weeks back? Inspired, it was just such a treat to watch you. Amazing.”

“Thank you. So you’re students?”

“Yeah, we’re just about to take our final exam!”

“Oh, congratulations! I’m a graduate.”

“You’re a graduate?” Pandora echoed.

“Yeah!”

“Which house were you in?”

“Virtus.”

“Me too!” Icarus smiled.

“Well, I don’t want to keep you from your fun, but it was nice to meet you.”

“It’s lovely to meet you,” Pandora replied. “Thank you for coming and saying hello.”

“No problem.”

“Yeah, you’re such a huge inspiration,” Icarus beamed.

“That’s sweet, that’s sweet. Well, you know, when you’re graduates, you could be a gladiator too.”

“Icarus, you could be a gladiator,” Pandora suggested.

“I have thought about it,” he admitted.

“I’m sure you’d be great in the arena,” Mayes approved.

“You think?”

“Yeah, you have a really good attitude, so.”

Icarus turned back to the gladiator. “Maybe I’ll see you in there, then!”

“Maybe you will,” she smiled before turning to Mayes with a less friendly expression. “Oh, by the way, it’s a performance. Sometimes we fall down on purpose. I’d watch out for that.”

Mayes whispered to Icarus in a way that was not quiet enough. “Go for her feet if you fight her.”

The woman walked past. “Only if I want to fall down,” she called, waking straight into the tavern.

Icarus was starstruck. “I just talked to a gladiator, in real life!”

“You did,” Pandora smiled.

“There’s three more that you can speak to if you want to,” Mayes pointed into the crowd.

Icarus shook his head. “It’s already a lot.”

The remaining three celebrities were consumed by the crowd, with people pulling them aside and chatting to them in the same way they just had with Damaris, telling them how big of a fan they were, asking for autographs, and keeping them distracted. Eventually, the three of them swatted the crowd away, apologizing and taking a breath before heading past and straight into the tavern, not paying the students any mind.

Mayes looked at the others. “Well, we should go back to our table then, right?”

“Yeah,” Icarus sighed.

“He’s really tall,” Pandora commented.

“Uh-huh… Drinks? Yeah? Yeah.”

They headed back inside. The four gladiators were now grouped together at the bar, leaning on it and chatting amongst themselves. Icarus sat back in his seat, turning his chair slightly to get a better view.

Lorakai rolled his eye. “Why don’t you go over and speak to them?”

“That’s what I was saying,” Mayes agreed.

“No,” Icarus blushed. “I already spoke to one of them.”

Lorakai leaned forward, placing both elbows on the table as he looked the triton in the eye. “Are you a coward?”

Icarus met the stare. “No, I’m not a coward.”

Lorakai shrugged. “Looks to me like you’re being a coward.”

“Wow, okay, fine!” Icarus stood with his drink, tapping his peers on the shoulders. “Come on!”

“What?” Pandora looked up.

“Come on.”

“Okay…”

Icarus turned to Mayes. “Come on?”

“Yeah, obviously,” Mayes stood.

“Yeah, great. Great.”

They approached the bar, their three mentors watching with utter amusement on their faces, even Citra. Mayes looked back at their mentor, pointing at Icarus and mouthing  _ “big fan.” _

Pandora gave the triton a little shove. Damianos was fully engaged in conversation with the bartender. Icarus leaned over the bar. “I’ll pay for this round of drinks for them.”

Damianos looked over, a bit confused. “...I’m not gonna say no.”

“Yeah, uh… you’re welcome.”

“Thanks.”

“Introduce yourself!” Pandora whispered.

“I’m Icarus. From Delphos.”

“Nice to meet you,” Damianos nodded. “You getting any drinks for yourselves, or…?”

“Yeah, I just finished mine.”

“Icarus, I’ll have a drink,” Pandora smiled.

“Great, do you want wine again?”

“Yes please.”

“I’m alright,” Mayes declined.

“Okay,” Icarus relayed the order to the bartender, getting an ale for himself, wine for Pandora, and offering to pay for whatever the gladiators were drinking.

“Sure,” the bartender poured out the drinks, handing them over and sliding double pints to the gladiators. Icarus handed over four silver for it all.

Damianos lifted his glass. “Cheers, bud.”

“No worries!” Icarus replied.

But Damianos had already turned back to his conversation with his friends.

“I was talking with your friend earlier about becoming a gladiator, potentially,” Icarus continued.

Damianos didn’t turn around. “Were you?”

“...Okay. I’m gonna go sit back down…”

“No no, don’t go sit back down,” the gladiator turned back. “I’m just teasing, I’m just teasing. You want to be a gladiator? Why?”

“Because he’s amazing,” Pandora offered. “And he killed a giant today.”

“Really?”

“We,” Icarus amended. “We killed a giant. You,” he pointed to Mayes.

“Hey,” Mayes gave a little salute.

“Well, the two of you killed a giant,” Pandora revised.

Damaris leaned over. “They’re Delphos students.”

Damianos didn’t seem to recognize the name. “Huh?”

“The Academy. The training Academy that I went to?”

“Oh, okay,” The Lion sat back in his seat. “Nice to meet you, Delphos students.”

Mayes gave the man a look. “Yeah, you know, the really prestigious one, like, right next to the coliseum?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “Not everybody needs training.”

“Did you go to an academy or a school?” Pandora asked.

“No,” Damianos and Icarus answered in tandem, the latter still with a starstruck expression. There was a strange pause for a moment as the others looked at the triton, and Icarus lowered his gaze with embarrassment.

“How did you know that?” Pandora asked.

“I really like the gladiators arena. I go a lot,” Icarus blushed.

Damianos continued on. “No, I trained in the military.”

“Did you always want to be a gladiator? Or did it just sort of happen?” Pandora wondered.

“Never really thought about it. Just a place to put my skills to use after leaving the army, I guess.”

“He’s very performative,” Mayes explained. “He knows how to please a crowd, so, it makes sense.”

“That’s part of what being a gladiator is about,” Icarus added.

“I know, I’m just saying that he’s really good at his job.”

“Thank you,” Damianos nodded.

“So how many giants have you killed?” Pandora asked.

The Lion took a moment to think. “Hmm… maybe ten, eleven.”

“Okay…”

“So we’ve got some catching up to do,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Icarus grinned.

“Well, you’re just kids, right?” Damianos guessed.

“We’re not kids,” Pandora frowned.

“I’m twenty-four,” Icarus replied.

“Huh. Well at least you’re old enough to be drinking that,” Damianos shrugged.

A few more of the gladiators laughed as Damaris rolled her eyes. “Look, you can sit with us,” she offered.

Icarus perked up. “Really?”

“Yeah, yeah why not,” she replied in amusement as the others looked slightly bothered.

“Thanks!”

“Come, sit down. We’ve always got time for Delphos students.”

Icarus sat. “So, you’re a graduate, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So what was your final exam like?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard it’s like, really dangerous,” Pandora worried.

“It can be, depends what you’re doing,” Damaris shrugged. “You know there’s like… a bunch of different… things that they repeat? Year on year? But they are different, and we’re not allowed to talk about them really. I did the Labyrinth.”

“The Labyrinth?” Pandora and Icarus chorused.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of it, but, swore an oath that we’re not gonna speak about it, so.”

Pandora looked at the table. “I’ve heard that people die in the Labyrinth.”

“Oh yeah.”

“I’ve heard that too,” Mayes added.

“People die,” Damaris nodded. “It’s pretty terrifying. And you know, passing it as a group doesn’t mean that you all pass.”

Pandora glanced back up. “What? What does that mean?”

“Well, just because you make it out alive doesn’t mean you pass your exam.”

Mayes frowned. “I suppose if you let down your teammates, then…”

“Only I passed the Labyrinth.”

Icarus grinned. “Really?”

“Mhm.”

“So how many other people were in your group?” Pandora pressed.

“Two.”

“And they both failed?”

“They failed.”

“Oh my Gods…”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Icarus consoled her.

“Just need to pull your weight, that’s all,” Damaris advised. “You’ll be fine, it’s not even that tough. I’m sure if you made it this far, it’s gonna be fine.”

Mayes stared at her a moment, trying to get a read on the gladiator, but they had no way of telling if she was being truthful or not. They squinted a bit at Damaris, and the gladiator gave them the stink eye right back.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Pandora pleaded. “Any hints at all?”

“Is it like… tailored to the houses of the group?” Mayes wondered.

“Or tailored to the individual?”

Damaris thought. “I would say… thinking back on mine, years ago now. Tailored to… tailored to your skills, so probably the individual. It’ll be one thing, like, the labyrinth is the same basis for everyone, but they change out what’s in it.”

“Hm. So if you’re known for problem solving, they’ll put in puzzles, and if you're known for being really strong it’ll be more things to fight?” Mayes reasoned.

“Well no, it’ll be some of everything, because they want to make sure that you’re capable of pulling it all off. There’s no point making someone who’s just good at hitting things with a sword.”

“You’ve gotta be a well rounded person,” Pandora agreed.

“Yeah,” Icarus smiled.

Damaris gave a teasing glance over to The Lion. “That’s why Damianos never went to school.”

“Hey!” the other gladiator turned.

“Well they’re sure as hell not going to put ten giants in the labyrinth,” Pandora sighed. “You guys are gonna have to do other stuff as well.”

“Yeah,” Damaris nodded. “And, you know, they won’t tell you anything, so… just prepare yourselves.”

“I’m so looking forward to this,” Icarus grinned. “It’s gonna be so much fun.”

“It’s gonna be a really good test,” Mayes agreed.

Icarus stared at Damianos a bit more. The Lion had turned to face them now, sitting back on his bar stool with the double pint of ale. “So you’re big fans?”

“No,” Pandra replied.

Damianos blinked a bit, processing. “That’s fair.”

“He’s a big fan,” Mayes pointed to Icarus, “I like to go for academic purposes.”

“I have been to The Maw maybe once or twice,” Pandora followed.

“We’re going to take her.”

He raised a brow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, when’s your next big fight?”

“Uh….”

“Three days,” Icarus answered.

Damianos looked at Icarus for a moment. “Yeah.”

Mayes grabbed Icarus by the shoulder, turning him to the side for a second as the others talked. “Hey, man, okay. I know you’re really really excited about this, but you’re gonna have to cool it with the fact that you know everything about this guy. Because you’re creeping him out. I don’t know if he’s noticed that you’re being like that, he doesn’t seem like the sharpest mace in the armoury, but...”

“I’m just, really excited, about all of them…”

“Shh, shh. It’s okay. Back you go,” Mayes turned them back into the conversation.

Damaris leaned over. “You want tickets?”

Icarus gasped. “Really?”

“Yeah, we have a guest list. And believe me, it’s hard enough to get people on a guest list. Family and friends, they’ve seen this stuff too many times.”

“Oh, there’s no such thing.”

“Front row tickets?”

Icarus’s jaw dropped.

“Are you serious?” Pandora asked.

“Why not?”

“Yes, that would be amazing!” Icarus beamed.

“That’s so generous, thank you,” Pandora accepted.

“Oh, it’s fine,” she shrugged. “I’ll take your names. Ezra will take your names,” she snapped at the lizardfolk person.

They turned around and frowned a bit. “Sure, what are your names?”

“Mayes.”

“...Just… Mayes?”

“Hasagawa.”

They wrote it down, grabbing a napkin from the bar.

“Icarus Pelayo.”

“Uh huh.”

“Pandora Di Rossi.”

“Alright, alright.” They handed the napkin to Damaris, giving her a look before turning back to their conversation with a human.

“You fight really well by the way,” Icarus called after.

“Oh, thanks.”

“No worries. Your performance last week was killer.”

“I’m sure it’ll be killer again on Friday.”

“Yeah!”

“Your intimidation abilities are second to none,” Mayes agreed.

The lizardfolk grinned at Damaris. “Ah, see! Why didn’t you tell me these kids were nice?”

Icarus turned back to Pandora. “But yeah, we should definitely take you along, because you’ll love it! It’s so interesting to watch.”

“I’m excited,” she admitted.

Mayes tilted their head, looking at the gladiators. “Do you ever open up to spellcasters? Is that not a thing?”

“What, in the arena?” one of them replied. “Yeah, we have spellcasting fights.”

“Really?” Pandora gasped. “Oh my Gods, you mean to be saying I could have been taking notes all of this time?”

“That’s what I mean,” Mayes nodded. “We can maybe go and see one of those.”

“Yes please!”

“It’s probably like ten days or something until there’s a special,” the gladiator continued.

“We can definitely go,” Icarus nodded.

“We have to go,” Pandora agreed. “Although, the exam is probably before then.”

“We can see how the exams go first,” Mayes decided.

“As a celebration,” the gladiator smiled.

“Yeah, exactly,” Icarus agreed.

“You should see Damen here sling spells. He’s like, explosive.”

Damianos gave a little nod at his name.

“Are you a spellcaster?” Pandora asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” he replied.

“That’s so cool.”

“Thanks.”

Icarus was trying very hard to keep his mouth closed, finding it almost physically painful to prevent himself from explaining all of Damen’s tricks in the ring. Mayes gave him a pat on the back.

“Are you okay?” Pandora asked.

“Yep.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’m just… something caught in my throat,” he false coughed.

“You want some wine?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Pandora passed over her glass.

Damianos looked over the three students. “You think your… carers… are looking for you?”

“They’re mentors, they’re not carers,” Pandora explained, looking back over her shoulder.

Alexander gave a small wave from the table, offering a smile that was practically a straight line.

“It was really nice to meet you but I have to go now, thank you so much,” Pandora headed back over to the table.

“Well, it’s nice to talk to you kids,” Damianos nodded. “I guess we’ll see you in three days.”

“Yeah, you too. Thanks again, for…” Icarus couldn’t meet Damen’s eyes. “Tickets…”

Damen gave them a big, dumb grin. “Yeah, it’s no problem, Anytime. Anything for a… Delphos… student.”

Icarus offered out a hand, and Damen shook it. Icarus gave a good squeeze, and the grip was returned in kind with sharp hobgoblin fingernails.

Mayes gave The Lion an approving nod. “You’re cool.”

“You too.”

“Thanks,” they offered a hand, and Damen shook it, not squeezing quite as hard. Damen didn’t feel as threatened by Mayes’ squeeze, though slightly by their determined eye contact. “You need to keep a tighter grip on your whip sometimes.”

Damianos blinked. “...Okay?”

There was a tense silence before Icarus grabbed Mayes, ending the moment. “We’re gonna go! It was really nice to see you!” He pulled Mayes away and back to the table.

As they walked away, they heard Damaris whisper back to Damianos. “Yeah that’s really annoying, isn’t it? Right? I wish people would never do that.”

Icarus escorted Mayes back to the table with their mentors. “You can’t just tell people what they’re bad at!”

“I’m trying to help them improve.”

“Yeah, but like Damaris said, it’s a performance. Most of the time they’re told not to do that.”

“When I mess up, Citra just tells me what it is, and I do it better.”

“Yeah, but, that’s because you’re learning how to do it better. They know how to do better, but they decide not to, because otherwise it’s not that fun to watch. Because, it’s scripted! It’s like theater. But with fighting.”

“...That’s dumb.”

Icarus was scandalized. “No, it’s not!”

“If you’re gonna fight, just fight each other.”

“Yeah, they used to, but now it’s, you know, they don’t want everyone to just kill each other all the time.”

“You just pull your blows at the last second.”

Icarus sighed. “Okay. It’s fun. It’s the excitement, the adrenaline, you know?”

Mayes frowned. “Well, now I’m less interested in studying it.”

“No, come on! It’ll be fun.”

They tottered back, and they overheard the mentors talking about ending their night, not wanting to hang out with their students all night. They told the trio they would foot the bill, and they could drink what they wanted. Though they were warned that they shouldn’t get too drunk, they were encouraged to have a celebration.

Icarus gave Lorakai a big handshake, and his mentor caught him on the forearm to give him a squeeze. “See you at home, kid.”

“See you at home,” Icarus grinned.

Citra gave Mayes a curt nod, and her student bowed in response. They disappeared, leaving the students with the remnants of the feast, with quite a lot of food still left on the table. They said their goodbyes and see you tomorrows, and filtered out of the taverna. Pandora watched Alexander as he left, and he gave another wave and a straight-lined smile. The three of them were left in the tavern.

Icarus looked at Pandora, who had sighed with the unmistakable expression of yearning on her face. “Oh… oh?  _ Oh…  _ Really?”

Pandora blinked out of her trance. “What?”

“You got a thing for him?”

Pandora’s voice increased in pitch. “What? No! No, of course not. He’s my mentor!”

“Yeah. And you’ve got a thing for him.”

“What? No! What makes you say that?”

Icarus mimicked the wistful expression Pandora had just done as Mayes drew a circle around their own face with a finger.

“Did I look like that?!”

“Yes,” the others agreed.

“Oh my Gods, do you think he saw?”

“No, he was walking away,” Mayes assured her.

“Well, he did turn around and do a,” Icarus mimicked the wave and straight smile as Mayes did the same.

“Oh, did I really look like that…?”

“Maybe not quite as dramatically as the way I just,” Icarus did the wistful expression again, “But kind of. So...”

Pandora sighed. “I’m so embarrassed.”

“It’s okay,” Mayes grinned “You’re among friends.”

“Yeah!” Icarus smiled at her.

Pandora shifted under the stare. “What? What do you want! What do you want from me?”

“Nothing! It’s cute! How long have you crushed on him?”

She sighed again. “Um… 634 days, and 4 hours, and 7 minutes.”

The other two students took a moment to absorb that information.

“Not that you’re keeping count,” Icarus teased.

“It’s a very impressive tally,” Mayes shrugged.

“It’s sweet.”

“He’s quite handsome.”

“Yeah, I can see why you’d like him.”

“Yeah,” Pandora sighed again.

“I’m sure he’s nice,” Mayes approved.

Icarus did the trademark wave and smile again. So did Mayes.

“Stop!” Pandora grinned. She took another drink. “Don’t you say anything to him!”

“I’m not gonna!” Icarus assured her. “You don’t sell out friends.”

“Trust,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Promise,” Icarus offered a hand.

“Promise,” Pandora shook his, then Mayes’. “If you break that promise, I’ll get you!”

“Yeah, break my promise, break my neck.”

“Yeah. Because I can, like, drain the life from you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“I would like to see that,” Mayes nodded with interest. “Not on him, but.”

“I’ll show you sometime.”

“Cool.”

“And just know that it’ll happen to you if you tell him. Or say anything. Or give anything away. Or tell anyone!”

Icarus chuckled. “Okay.”

“I’ll get you.” 

“Sealed,” he mimed locking his lips.

“Sealed.”

Mayes looked between the two. “You guys are a lot, you know?”

“Hey, I was making you smile,” Icarus grinned.

Mayes chuckled. “I’m not grumpy. Just, some of the folks in my class are a lot quieter.”

“Yeah, we know.”

“I heard that your house was the smallest one?” Pandora asked. “How many students in your class?”

No matter how long anyone studied, no one really stayed at the school for more than six years. There wasn’t a set time for the final exam, it simply happened when you were ready. In total in Callidus, there were about 40 students, while there were closer to 100 students per house in the others. “There’s only like, forty odd of us.”

“No way!”

“Once you get past a certain level, you get mentored one on one, all the time.”

“Oh that’s so cool! So Citra is like your personal mentor?”

“Yep. Wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s tough, and respectful, you know.”

“She seems really fierce.”

They grinned. “She is, but she’s also kind of a goof.”

“Well, from what I’ve heard about you, you’ve got a great reputation for getting the job done,” Icarus nodded.

“Thank you.”

“It’s alright.”

“Yeah, it’s… We’re trained to be very… specific, in what we do. So.”

“Yeah, it paid off. Saw that today.”

“Thanks,” Mayes nodded. “And hey, your bubbly reputation precedes you too. I heard about how loud and enthusiastic you could be and I thought, no way, no way anyone could be that peppy. But here you are.”

“Here you are,” Pandora smiled.

“It’s a good thing. It’s nice.”

Icarus laughed. “Well, you know. And you,” he nudged Pandora, “Top of your class.”

Pandora shrugged. “Barely.”

“...No, yeah, you’re top of your class.”

“I mean, I guess, but like, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m the best in the class…”

“You are way too hard on yourself,” Mayes grinned.

“And also, that’s kind of what top of the class means?” Icarus pressed. “It’s the best? Of the class?”

“Well you wouldn’t have thought so today,” Pandora sighed. “With how poorly I performed.”

“That’s okay! You can make mistakes, because then you learn from what you did.”

Mayes nodded. “And you were clearly conflicted about whether to follow the orders or the fine print, so. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“You guys are so nice. I’m really glad that we’re a team.”

“Me too,” Icarus grinned.

“Yeah,” Mayes smiled. “We’re friends now.”

“Yeah.”

“Really?” Pandora smiled. “Wow, I’ve never really had like, proper friends before.”

“Well, here we are,” Icarus smiled, wrapping his arms around the other two. “And we are a team, and it’s gonna be great.”

They stayed at the tavern for another hour or two. It began to fill up as time passed by, and the gladiators moved on for some kind of taverna crawl. As it got busy, they were quick to leave before getting surrounded again. The trio left around midnight, when the streets were dark, though there were a few people still dotted around. The gentle glow of the braziers hanging above people’s stoops illuminated the street, with moths and various flies fluttering around in the light and casting small shadows. It looked soft and peaceful through the city in the light.

  
  


As they were walking along to the academy, they heard footsteps behind them. They turned to look, and saw three figures approaching behind them, silhouetted in the light.

“Hello?” Pandora called out.

As the unknown group approached, a brazier under a doorway casted light over their faces. They saw Alexis, as well as a hobgoblin named Matej that they knew from Domus Imperitoria, and a dwarven lady known as Juliet, also in Domus Imperitoria. The three of them stepped up, maybe fifteen feet away in the street.

“Oh hey!” Icarus smiled. “You heading back too? Come on, join us.”

Alexis gave them a disdainful look. “No, I don’t think I will.”

“Oh, okay…”

“Alright…” Mayes followed.

“We’ll catch you back at school?”

“Don’t follow us, then,” Mayes frowned.

“Heard you got into your final exams,” Alexis continued.

“Yeah!” Icarus grinned.

“What did you tell them?”

Pandora was a bit confused. “What?”

“What did you tell them?”

“That we… neutralized the threat,” Mayes answered.

Alexis shook his head. “I don’t know what you said, but do you know how much trouble you got us in?”

“What?” Pandora and Icarus chorused.

“Yeah.”

Icarus shook his head. “Why?”

Alexis shrugged. “You know what you said, we don’t know.”

“We didn’t say anything,” Pandora offered. “Especially about you guys, we wondered if you were all okay!”

“Now we’ve got clean up duty for a week, so.”

“Wow, I’m sorry,” Icarus frowned. “I didn’t expect that to happen. We didn’t talk bad about you.”

Alexis rolled his eyes. “Well, whatever. I’m sure you’re gonna breeze through your final exams anyway. You two as well, you know what he’s like,” Alexis scowled at the triton.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pandora pressed.

“Well, they just give him anything, don’t they. Nice and easy when your dad is a teacher.”

Mayes kept their eyes on Alexis. “He works hard. As hard as any of us.”

“If not harder,” Pandora agreed.

“Yeah, right,” Alexis scoffed. Icarus had gone quiet.

“He worked hard to fight the giant that you ran away from,” Mayes jabbed.

“Come on,” Icarus shook his head. “Let’s just go.”

“No, you know what?” Alexis rolled his shoulders. “Let’s go right now.”

Mayes raised a brow. “Oh, you want to square up?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright.”

“You’re gonna start a fight in the street?” Pandora gasped.

Alexis shrugged. “If you think you’re so much better than us.”

“No, you insult my friend, I’ll fight back,” Mayes replied.

“Mayes!” Pandora warned.

“Yeah, let’s do it,” Alexis continued. “Right now. Me and you, let’s go.”

Icarus put out a hand. “No, come on…”

Pandora shook her head. “No!”

“You can step aside if you’d like, little lady,” Alexis smirked.

“Don’t  _ little lady _ me!”

Icarus met Alexis’s eye. “Come on.”

Alexis pulled a shortsword from his side, levying it at the trio. The other two students seemed to be trying to talk Alexis down as well.

“Alexis,” Icarus warned again.

Mayes pulled out their katana, though still sheathed.

“Mayes,” Icarus turned the warning to his friend. “Let’s just head back.”

“No, you wanna fight, let’s fight,” Alexis pressed.

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “He’s insulted your honor.”

Icarus shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

“He deserves to learn a lesson.”

Matej put up his hands. “You know what, you can fight one on one if you want to, but we’re not fighting three on one.”

Juliet pulled a dagger from her side, in its sheath as well. “I’m in.”

It was common practice in the school training arena to fight each other with sheathed weapons, though not out on the street. Mayes pulled out their other sword.

“Mayes, you can’t fight two of them by yourself!” Pandora reasoned.

“They were rude to you,” they responded.

Icarus pulled his glaive off his back. “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter.”

Alexis pointed his sword at the two of them. “Come on then. Prove you’re worth your mettle and not just in the school because your mentor is your dad.”

Icarus brought up his glaive. “Alright, you asked.”

Taking a swing, he hit Alexis on his arm with the flat side of the blade. There was a metallic ringing as Alexis let out a grunt. Mayes moved in by Icarus, striking with the katana to land an impressively powerful whack.

Looking between the two of them, Alexis decided Mayes was the bigger threat. Using his sword, he swung twice at them, hitting Mayes with the flat blade of the sheathed sword on both sides.

Matej rolled his eyes, trying to stop the fight. “Come on, Alexis!”

Pandora held up her pendulum, swaying it as she cast a spell towards Alexis. “You need to back off!”

The magic went completely wild in her attempt to avoid her allies, and the spell fizzled away. Juliet pulled out a quarterstaff and rushed up to flank Mayes. She swung and missed as Mayes smoothly ducked out of the way. “Oh come on,” they taunted. “You have to do better, your house is so prestigious.”

Matej sighed again. “Come on, come on…” A little bit drunk, and slightly annoyed, Matej cast his own spell towards Alexis. “Don’t be such an idiot!”

In a flash of light, a radiant flame ascended on top of Alexis, lighting them all up for a moment.

Icarus swung his glaive, but it bounced off Alexis’s very fancy looking custom armour. Summoning his spiritual weapon, a grecian sword appeared in the air, looking quite battle worn. Icarus levied it at him as the weapon floated in the air, bringing it out threateningly. “Come on, back off.”

Mayes swung their katana, aiming for the legs. They took his knees out, and Alexis dropped to the ground as his sword scattered across the dirt. “Assholes!”

“Says you,” Mayes shrugged.

Icarus offered a hand out, but he didn’t take it.

Pandora’s pendulum glowed red as she prepared another spell. “Now that’s enough, you stop this, or we’ll… I’ll hit you!”

The dwarven girl raised an eyebrow and laughed. “You couldn’t hit me if you tried!”

She clapped her hands together, letting out a wave of thunder that pushed Icarus back as the other two stumbled. Pandora released her prepared spell, sending a bolt of fire out to land true into the shoulder of the girl. Juliet brushed it away, hissing from the pain of the heat.

Matej put his hands on his face and made an exasperated noise. “I am so sorry about them!” He wrapped his arms around Juliet, pulling her to his chest. “That’s enough.”

“Thanks Matej,” Icarus smiled.

“Yeah. We’re cool?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Mayes nodded.

Juliet struggled a bit in Matej’s grasp. Alexis dragged himself to his feet, still refusing Icarus’s hand. Sneering once more, he walked off down the street past them.

“Jerks!” Pandora called after.

Alexis turned around, giving her a filthy look. “Stupid…”

“Don’t be so stuck up about it next time,” Mayes advised.

As Matej released Juliet, she scampered after Alexis, moving quickly and obediently to his heel. Matej sighed. “I promise you, we don’t all think that of you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Icarus shrugged. “Used to it.”

He pointed after the others. “I should probably…”

“Yeah. See you later.”

“Thanks for your help,” Pandora nodded.

Icarus offered the hand to Matej, and he shook it. “You guys did great, by the way.”

“Yeah, so did you,” Icarus smiled.

“...Sorry.” Matej scuttled away quickly to keep up with the other two.

The trio watched them go for a minute. “Sorry about that,” Icarus offered.

“No, I’m sorry that he said those mean things to you,” Pandora countered.

“Oh, don’t worry about it.”

“That’s not cool,” Mayes frowned.

“It’s not too bad.”

“For what it’s worth,” Pandora offered, “I don’t think you got your place just because of… who your father was. So. I think you got in on your own merit.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it,” Icarus smiled. “He’s not my dad, by the way.”

“So who is he talking about?”

“Uh, Lorakai. My guardian.”

“Oh! So he’s like, your guardian and your mentor?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s really cool.”

“Yeah, he’s a good guy. Anyway, let’s go back.”

“Yeah it’s getting late.”

“We should sleep,” Mayes agreed.

“We should  _ study _ ,” Pandora realized.

Icarus chuckled. “There’s plenty of time.”

“Is there?”

“Tonight is a night off, come on, let’s go back.”

“Oh, but what if they wake us up first thing tomorrow for the first exam?” Mayes teased.

“Because they can do that!” Pandora worried.

“For the  _ Labyrinth _ !” Mayes continued, spinning a tale of horror with their inflection.

“They could do that anytime!”

Icarus grinned at Mayes. “I really enjoyed how you said that. The  _ Labyrinth _ ,” he copied.

“I’m excited,” they grinned. “I’m excited to test something out properly.”

“That’d be cool.”

Pandora walked a bit quicker.

  
  


As they walked, they started to feel their limbs getting sluggish. They were walking quickly back towards the front of the school, and as they came up to the familiar wall with the flags hanging down, it suddenly felt as though time was slowing down around them. Their limbs felt heavy, and they had to drag them with every step. It grew hard to breathe, as if the air around them was growing thick, blocking their throats with each breath.

The ground rumbled beneath their feet. Tearing through the flagstone before them, an explosion of green light shot up and around like fireworks, like shooting stars with trails of green fog behind them, glowing orbs ahead of them, they shot up from the ground all around them, swirling about them too fast to focus on.

Pandora shrieked. The lights shrieked too, like a death rattle, and their blood went cold with dread as their eyes flitted between the different orbs. They swore they could see faces in the strange lights. They seemed to swell and bolster all around the land outside of the academy, and then, as fast as they arrived, they were gone. Looking around for any sign of what just happened, there was nothing. It was dark outside, and there was no one around.

They had seen the flagstones at their feet shatter with the force of the lights exploding out of them, but everything looked normal and calm, the world perfectly still and untouched.

Pandora blanched. “But…”

“You guys…” Icarus tilted his head. “You saw that, right?”

“Yeah!”

“It looked like… spirits or something?” Mayes guessed.

“I don’t know, that was so weird!”

“Should we… report that?”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed. “Yeah probably. That was… huh.”

He bent to inspect the flagstones. Looking around them, they seemed perfectly normal. Where they had seen fireworks, like shooting stars from the ground with trails of green light behind them, there was just plain flagstone, undisrupted, with not even cracks in the stone.

Pandora reflected on what she had read. Nothing she had heard of was like this directly, but the green light reminded her of something spiritual, and perhaps necromantic. “The light kind of looked like when I cast my necromancy spells.”

“That’s concerning,” Icarus replied.

“Yeah. I need to go to the library.”

“Okay… we’re not gonna report this?”

“Yeah, and then I need to go to the library.”

“Okay, sure.”

“Should we find… Sebaste?” Mayes suggested. “Or…?”

“I don’t know where he’d be, but… I know where Lorakai stays?” Icarus shrugged.

“Yeah, maybe Alexander knows something,” Pandora nodded.

As they headed inside the building, it was fairly quiet and empty at that time of night, but they ran into one of their professors. Professor Zyki, a hobgoblin half-elf strategy teacher, walked down the corridor with a book in his hands.

“Master Zyki?” Icarus called.

The professor looked up. “What can I do for you?”

“We just… had an experience, just outside of the school.”

“Really weird,” Pandora expanded. “Like, I wouldn’t believe it if these two hadn’t seen it either.”

“Like, spirits, or something,” Mayes offered.

Pandora nodded. “Like the ground sort of cracked open, and there was this big rumbling, and all of these, like, fireworks started coming out of the ground, like green smoke and lights going everywhere- ”

“Faces,” Icarus added.

“Faces, and…”

“It felt like we couldn’t breathe? And that everything suddenly slowed down, like we were walking through…”

“Like treacle.”

“Yeah.”

The professor furrowed their brow. “This doesn’t seem like anything that I’ve heard of before, but I’ll assure you we’ll look into this. We’ll have some of the school guards take a look around the perimeter, make sure everything is safe. Thank you.”

“Please,” Pandora nodded.

“Thank you,” Icarus followed.

“For now,” the professor continued, “It’s probably best you go back to your dormitories.”

“Sure,” Mayes agreed.

“Yeah, sure,” Icarus followed, giving Pandora a look. “We can do the library tomorrow. You need rest.”

“Okay,” she relented.

“Okay,” Zyki nodded. “Don’t worry. You’re in safe hands.”

“Yeah,” Icarus nodded. “Sure.”

He ushered them off, and headed quite hurriedly down the corridor.

Icarus turned to the others. “So we’re gonna look into this ourselves, right?”

“Yeah,” Pandora agreed.

“Yeah, sure,” Mayes nodded.

“Great. But I definitely need a rest after today,” Icarus sighed.

“Today was a lot,” Pandora nodded.

“Yeah, but guess what?”

“Final exams,” Mayes grinned.

“Final exams.”

“Final exams!” Pandora worried. “Could be happening any time. I need to study.”

“You need to sleep first.”

“...Sleep and then study.”

“Yeah, we did good today,” Mayes approved. “You guys are alright.”

Icarus grinned. “Yeah, so are you.”

“You guys are amazing,” Pandora followed.

“Come on, we got this.”

  
  


The three of them headed back to their separate dormitories in their three separate house buildings. They returned to their rooms, which were small, but pleasant and comfortable, with single beds and space to sleep and study, piles of books, and their weapons. It was quite late, and they had had a fair amount of wine. They climbed into their beds, and each of them managed to sleep, but their dreams were absolutely restless.

Each of them dreamt of a dark, winding cavern, a room wreathed in green light, of red strings being teased and pulled by three cloaked figures, and then severed nearly threadbare, nearly to the point of breaking, by sharp and glinting blades.

And Damianos, his throat dripping in blood.

  
  



	2. In Dark Places, Episode Two

They were standing in a long, dark tunnel. It was narrow with a low ceiling, the shadows stretching ahead of them into nothingness. They felt cold, and each one of them was entirely alone. Individually, they called out for someone, anyone, and their voices echoed off the stone walls around them.

They moved forwards. Every footstep seemed too loud as they moved through the darkness, feeling their way with hands on each wall of the tunnel, the stone damp underneath their fingers. They walked on for what felt like hours. The tunnel opened up onto a plateau of rock, and into a room with a bright green glow. There was a wide river that weaved around the rock. Walking over to the edge of it, they peered down, and the cliff seemed to plummet down to the river maybe fifty, sixty, seventy feet down.

The green light floated all around them with the same strange orbs they saw in the street, bobbing almost like flying candles. When they turned back from the river, they weren’t alone. They saw each other standing on the plateau.

Mayes gave a little salute, and the other two gave unsure waves.

“Hey,” Mayes greeted.

Icarus looked around. “...Hi?”

“Are… are you in my dream?” Pandora asked. “Or am I in your dream?”

“Or is this the same dream,” Mayes finished.

Icarus decided to pinch himself, and Pandora did the same. It didn’t hurt.

“...Okay. That’s…” Icarus looked at his hand before giving a curious look to Mayes. He walked over and tentatively squeezed their shoulder.

“I’m here, Icarus,” Mayes informed him.

The tunnel they entered through was suddenly gone, and they realized they were now standing on a circular stone platform with columns all around them. The tiles on the floor depicted the heads of five hydras. Across, on the other side of the plateau of rock, they saw a humanoid figure cloaked in something dark. It seemed miles away from them, even though they were sure it could only be thirty or forty feet away.

“Uh, hello?” Icarus called.

As he tried to speak, they heard a voice rattling around their heads as if it was everywhere and nowhere at once.

The voice of Damianos, like an echo chamber. “Not them! You can have me, please, but not them!”

The world seemed to stretch out before them. They could see Damianos now, at the edge of the plateau with the figure. A maniacal laugh filled the chamber. The three of them tried to run across, but the two figures before them disappeared in a wisp of black smoke.

The ceiling shook, small pieces of rock crumbling down from way above them, and they heard a roar behind them.

Mayes turned. “Shit.”

They saw a creature unlike anything they had seen before. It seemed to be standing upright, its head somewhere close to the top of the ceiling. The lower half of its body consisted of two coiled viper tails. Instead of fingers, they swore they saw several dragon heads erupting from its hands. It had wings that, when spread, blotted out the light. Looking up at its humanoid head, pointed nose and ears, and its long, dark hair which could have been hair or water or smoke for all they could tell, fire seemed to flash from its eyes. It seemed to be constantly hissing, sending dread coursing through them.

They found themselves facing off against the creature. It filled the space around them, its leathery bat-like wings stretching out to each side of the stone plateau. Damen and the other figure were nowhere to be seen.

Though they didn’t have their supplies a moment ago, in the blink of an eye, it seemed like they did. Pandora pulled out her dowsing crystal, swinging it around her head. Her body began blurring and vibrating until her form looked like heat haze, obscuring her from the monster’s view. “Does anyone know what that is?”

“Nope,” Mayes replied.

“I don’t know, but, we can take it,” Icarus encouraged.

“I don’t know!” Pandora worried.

“I’ve got your back.”

There was nowhere to hide. Mayes tried to get a read on it, but the creature was almost impossible to comprehend. They ran up to hit it, moving to the side with their katana. The blow deflected off one of its snake-like legs. Icarus cast out a bolt of electricity from his arcane focus, but it deflected off the creature’s natural armour just as the katana had. “Uh… okay.”

“Are you sure we can take it?” Pandora pressed.

“I mean, it’s just a dream, right? You can do anything you put your mind to, especially in a dream. We can do this. Positive thoughts.”

“...Okay,” Mayes replied. “Let’s try to… dream it dead.”

“Yeah, dream it dead.”

The creature lunged out with one clawed arm, raking across Mayes’ chest with absolute accuracy. It moved forward into the middle of the three students, and turned its jaw to Icarus while the spiked tail went for Pandora.

Icarus gulped. “Hey buddy.”

The tail knocked into Pandora, and the teeth stabbed into the triton. Icarus managed to throw back a spell in retaliation, but he was only able to do a fraction of the damage the enormous teeth had done to him. For the first time, the creature seemed to have noticed that it had been hit.

Pandora was still reeling from the tail. “I think we have to bust out the big guns on this one!”

She held out the pendulum again, and the crystal began to glow blood red. A ball of fire expanded around the creature, and when it moved to attack the others, Pandora moved her hands to keep the fire swelling away from her allies so as to not harm them.

The creature began to beat its wings, and all three of them fell back against the hard stone. Mayes quickly stood, attacking again with their sword. The weapon bounced off, and they went back in with their greek style sword only to flail helplessly against the enormous creature.

Icarus stood, his glaive in front of him as he held the holy symbol hanging from it and sent a wave of thunder towards the creature.

There was a crack of sound above them. Damianos appeared from somewhere in the shadows above them, landing a strike on its back. He appeared out of the darkness, his sword in both hands as he drove it into the creature’s back. Blood poured from the wound..

“Yes!” Icarus cheered.

“Thanks man!” Mayes called.

The gladiator called back from his position on the beast. “This ain’t over yet!”

The creature roared, and Icarus and Mayes were stricken with fear. Pandora’s blurring spell had faded, and the creature swung out to attack, but it miraculously missed. The tail went for Mayes, missing as well, Damen’s weight on its back throwing it off. It craned its neck around to bite Damianos, sinking its teeth into its side.

Pandora shot her other hand out to grab it, leaving a sickly green handprint on it as she cast one of her necromancy spells, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. The other two shook off their fear as Mayes made a swing, missing once before landing a second swipe with their kopis. The creature swung around again, grazing Mayes with its tail as they managed to dodge the worst of the blow.

Icarus sent out a healing spell to the entire team before going in with his glaive.

“Thanks Icarus!” Mayes called back.

“We’re not out of this yet,” he replied, glancing up at Damianos. Icarus sliced up with his glaive at one of the wings as the gladiator slid off the creature’s back.

Damen attacked with his sword again, sending out a spell of his own at the same time. The sword managed to pierce, but the spell glanced off the enormous body.

The creature moved again, throwing its tail at Pandora. The tiefling went down as the blow landed, crumpling to the floor. The monster’s claws went for Icarus, digging into his flesh before its jaws clamped down into Mayes. Beating its wings again, Mayes and Icarus were pushed back by the power, looking as though they were about to go down as well.

Mayes went in with Silence, their katana, managing to hit a rather impressive blow to slice through its hard, natural armour, while their second swing bounced right off. Icarus moved around to Pandora, putting a hand on her to offer another healing spell.

Pandora gasped. “Thank you!”

“Don’t worry Sunspot. You’ll be okay.”

“Is it dead yet?”

“Uh… we’re doing great.”

“Working on it!” Mayes called.

As Icarus reassured Pandora, the giant tail came crashing into the triton. He went down immediately.

Damianos circled the creature, slapping a hand onto Icarus’s side and pulling him back to his feet with a rather impressive bit of healing magic. “Not yet, Tadpole!”

“Yeah, not yet!” Icarus gasped. “Still good!”

Damianos summoned his own spiritual weapon, which took the shape of a giant battle axe. The axe went spinning into the creature, and Damen yelled up into the darkness. “Enough of this!”

The creature turned its teeth on the gladiator before sending its claws to Mayes, bringing another of their allies to the ground. Though they couldn’t see from where they were on the other side of the creature, Icarus and Pandora heard the thud of the body hitting the ground. Before they could react, the tail came in again, sending Pandora right back down. The light faded out of her crystal as she fell unconscious.

Icarus dug his nail into his finger, desperately gathering a bit of blood to cast a more powerful spell, but the creature was much too strong for the magic to take hold. “Fuck!”

He stood in front of Pandora’s body, holding the glaive defensively.

Damen slid in between Icarus and the creature, clutching the handle of his sword tightly. “Stop!” he yelled.

The creature stopped perfectly still with the magical command.

And then, in a whisper of smoke, it was gone.

Instead, standing in front of Damen, was the same dark figure. No matter what light there was, the figure was impossible to make out, as if silhouetted. Damen repeated the same words that had echoed through the room earlier. “Not them! You can have me, please, but not them!”

The figure stepped forward and took something from under their robe. Damen turned and glanced at the students behind him, offering a sort of lopsided, helpless smile.

The hand came around his neck and slashed his throat.

  
  


All three of them woke up.

They were in their dormitories.

Mayes ran for the desk in their room, spreading out a piece of paper, and grabbing supplies to paint any details from memory. It took about fifteen minutes to get it down on paper, but they managed to draw the creature pretty well. They waited for it to dry, rolling it up before getting ready and heading out.

Pandora woke, drenched in sweat and panting. There was a little kingfisher fluttering around in front of her, her familiar, Puck. She held her hands out for it, holding it close before putting it on her shoulder and trying to write down everything she could remember. It was a fairly detailed account, but it was hard to write down the twists and turns of a dream, and to make sense of the way events progressed in a dream. Writing it down, she recalled moving from one place to another without explanation, and points of action that didn’t quite line up, but she managed to recall a fair amount of information.

Icarus woke up with a shout, jolting up in his bed sweating. Composing himself and getting dressed, he ran to find the others. He wasn’t permitted inside the other houses, but he made his way to the front door of Medeis. It was about six in the morning, and he started knocking on the door without pause, pounding on the wood.

Calidorus, a very sleepy and grumpy looking earth genasi student, the equivalent of a head boy, opened the door. “What?”

“Pandora? Pandora Di Rossi? Is she here?”

“Um, probably?”

“Which room? I need to see her immediately.”

“Wait outside,” Calidorus groaned, shutting the door in Icarus’s face.

After a few minutes, Icarus noticed Mayes plowing through the courtyard behind him. Icarus turned and pointed at the human, and Mayes pointed back.

“Ah!” Icarus called across the field. “Dream?”

Mayes hurried over, unrolling the drawing.

“Ah!”

“Yeah!” Mayes agreed. “It was horrible.”

Icarus stared at the other student for a moment. “Why did we… why did we share…? Okay, I’m just waiting for Pandora to come out, and then we can talk, okay?”

“Yeah. Um… I’m not a fan of that.”

“No. No. No. No,” Icarus agreed. “We had, the, it, same dream?”

“Yeah. And we watched… The Lion of Erran… yeah. Yeah.”

“Yeah, let’s wait for Pandora.”

  
  


Calidorus came to Pandora’s room, giving a knock. She opened the door, already dressed. “Cal?”

“Someone outside looking for you? Triton?”

“Triton? Okay, thank you,” she took her notes with the kingfisher still on her shoulder before running out to the front. “Thank you Cal!”

“It’s okay!”

Pandora came out to meet the other two. “Dream?”

“Dream,” Mayes confirmed.

“Dream.”

Icarus gave her a big hug. Pandora hugged him back close as the kingfisher flew around them. Icarus opened his arms for Mayes as well, and they returned with a little side hug.

Icarus took a breath. “Okay.”

“So,” Mayes frowned. “Should we find somewhere quieter? Somewhere more private?”

There was a small library per house, but there was a larger one for everyone open from 6:00am to 1:00am. “The library should be opening,” Pandora suggested.

“Yeah, it’s unlikely that anyone else will be there at this time, right?”

“Probably not.”

“Okay. Let’s go?”

“Let’s go.”

“Sure,” Icarus agreed.

They entered the library, one of the biggest buildings on campus. Three stories tall, it towered over the other buildings, opening out into a wide and glorious library in the classic antiquity style, with columns and spiral staircases on the inside, and a long desk in the middle that sat a satyr librarian named Agrippa Deshanda. They knew the librarian well, the employee looking very old and very sleepy at their desk, blinking open their eyes at the sound of their entrance.

Mayes gave a little salute. “Morning.”

“Good morning,” Pandora followed.

“Good morning,” the librarian greeted. “Can I help you? You’re very early.”

“Good morning,” Icarus replied. “We’ve got our final exam coming up so, we wanted to get some more studying in.”

“Eager to study,” Mayes agreed.

“Can we use one of the private study rooms?” Pandora asked.

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” the librarian nodded. They dug out a big iron key, handing it over.

“Thank you.”

“Much obliged,” Mayes followed.

The librarian settled back to rest their eyes again. “Good to see students so eager.”

“Oh yes, always eager, us,” Pandora gave a nervous laugh before quickly heading for the private study room.

As soon as they were inside, Mayes unfolded the painting, a dynamic ink drawing of the creature. They weighted it down, and Pandora brought out her notes as well, with writings on what happened in the dream. Icarus looked at the papers. “You guys did homework on this,” he chuckled.

“I didn’t want to forget anything,” Pandora explained.

“Same,” Mayes followed.

Icarus frowned. “I think… we need to find out if Damianos is okay.”

“Yeah, and considering it turned into a person, I don’t know if trying to find out what this thing is is worth anything, but... it could mean something?”

“I wonder if it has anything to do with the thing we all saw last night,” Pandora thought. “On the way back.”

“I mean, there’s no way this is, like… this sounds insane,” Icarus warned, “But there is no way this is part of the final exam, right?”

“...I don’t know.”

Mayes furrowed their brow. “They can’t be injecting like… hallucinations and dreams into students, can they?”

“Why not?” Icarus argued.

“Well I mean, I don’t know,” Pandora worried. “They’re always very secretive about the final exams.”

Mayes shook their head. “That’s wild.”

“And they say some people die.”

Icarus waved a hand. “It is only a theory, but I mean… it’s a bit… I guess, coincidental? We meet each other yesterday, and then we see that thing together, we get into our final exams, and then that?”

“They said it could happen any time.”

Mayes didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t want to take the relaxed approach to this.”

“Oh, absolutely not,” Pandora agreed.   


“No,” Icarus followed.

“I would rather consider it a very genuine threat,” Mayes decided. “Completely separate. Because that way at least we’re prepared. So, yeah, we should find out if our gladiator friend is okay, we should find out what this thing is, and…”

“Should we maybe tell someone?” Pandora wondered.

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t know,” Icarus echoed. “Like, I’m sure Lorakai would listen, but I don’t know if he… you know… would get it? It’s kind of a hard thing.  _ Hey guess what? We saw weird spirits yesterday and then we had a shared dream where we fought a dragon tentacle thing? _ ”

None of them had any idea what the creature could have been. After splitting up and searching the levels of the library, they found an old, old tome, with a dark leather flaking cover, and a bunch of scrolls that had been leafed inside. A bestiary of sorts. Flicking through it for a while, they didn’t find any illustrations inside, but there was something with a vaguely similar description. Icarus and Pandora both spoke Ancient Errani, and there was a phrase at the bottom of that page in the language that could be translated to mean “ _ Father Of All Monsters. _ ”

“You see this here?” Pandora pointed, informing Mayes. “It’s Ancient Errani, it says,  _ Father Of All Monsters _ . I mean, I can believe it with that thing we saw.”

“It was horrible,” Mayes agreed. “Is that a mythology kind of thing?”

“Maybe.”

From what they gathered from the book, it only existed in that sort of theory. The description was vague, and though there was discussion of dragon-head fingers and wings that blotted out the sun, it was discussed more as a concept than as something anyone had ever seen. The theory was almost prehistoric, and absolutely ancient. They researched the green lights and faces they had seen last night as well, and found associations with necromancy as Pandora had suspected, as well as a connection to lost souls or spirits appearing in the form of floating souls with a trailing light behind.

“So we should go and find Damianos, right?” Icarus suggested.

“We all… before we were wandering and we found each other,” Mayes began, “We all saw the thing with the… the thread, as well, right?”

“Yeah,” Pandora recalled. “With the red threads, and the scissors?”

“The figures…”

“In the corridor?”

“Yeah,” Icarus frowned.

Mayes sighed. “Yeah.”

Mayes had heard of the Domain of Fate. It was considered, if it did exist, to be a demi-plane, but they didn’t know more than that. The image of red threads and three crones or hags or sometimes beautiful women, pulling the threads of fate and controlling who lived and died when, had been discussed in texts before. But it wasn’t a widely researched plane, as it didn’t fall into the realm of any commonly practiced religion in any capacity.

“That’s… that’s fate,” they explained. “Arbiters of fate who decide who lives and dies.”

“That’s ominous,” Pandora gulped.

“Yeah.”

“Well, they don’t get to tell me when I die,” Icarus decided. “So let’s… carry on.”

“But it would explain,” Mayes pressed, “It would link the dream to what we saw in the streets, restless souls.”

“Necromancy,” Pandora agreed.

Icarus sighed. “Sure. Right, I guess, let’s go to the… um…”

Mayes chuckled. “Three Delphos students going to The Maw at 6:00am.”

“Well I mean, it’s like 7:00 now… Also, I don’t know if he lives there.”

“I don’t think he lives at The Maw,” Pandora agreed.

“Probably not,” Mayes followed. “But maybe he’s practicing, or something.”

“It’s worth a try,” Icarus shrugged. “I don’t know where else to go.”

“Yeah.”

They headed out towards the coliseum. Icarus had his glaive firmly strapped to his back. They crossed the streets of Erran once again, taking the same path they had taken to the Imperial Square, and heading instead to The Maw arena. It was a gigantic coliseum arena that looked like two amphitheatres placed back to back. An oval, freestanding structure with beautiful golden arches of the same sandy colored stone that made up most of the city, it reached 150 feet tall at the highest point.

They walked up to the main entrance, two large wooden doors that were currently closed. It was in a large plaza with a bit of lawn outside, and some ornamental trees planted throughout the city to make neat rows along the outside. Normally, the area outside would be flooded with people, but this early there was only the occasional merchant wheeling their cart out to set up for the day, with nobody else around.

“Kind of hoped we’d be bringing you here over better circumstances,” Icarus chuckled, looking to Pandora.

“It’s very impressive,” she replied.

“Yeah, isn’t it?”

Mayes knocked. There was no answer.

After a while, they heard two people walking up behind them. They saw a dragonborn and a hobgoblin, both female, in the city guards’ uniform. They strolled up behind them, not looking concerned, but more confused. The hobgoblin eyed them. “No games on until tonight.”

“Yeah, I know, we know, um… we’re here to deliver some stuff for…” Icarus stopped himself, revising the lie. “Damen, promised that he would, like, help us out with our final exam coming up? We’re Delphos students, so… we thought we’d come and find him. Because, he said  _ bright and early! _ But he didn’t say a place.”

“We figured here was the best bet,” Mayes finished.

“Right,” the other guard nodded. “Um… okay.”

“Oh, I went to Delphos!” the hobgoblin smiled.

“Really?” Icarus smiled.

“Yeah!”

“What house were you in?” Pandora asked.

“Anterus.”

“Oh, Anterus!”

“Final exams are tough, huh?”

“We haven’t done it yet. What did you have to do for yours?”

The guard grinned. “You know, we’re not supposed to talk about it.”

“I know…”

“Well, that’s why Damen said he’d help us out,” Icarus reasoned. “You know?”

“That sounds very nice of him,” the guard smiled. She patted the dragonborn, “Okay, you keep going. I’ll take these guys around to the back door.”

“Thank you so much, we really appreciate it,” Pandora replied.

“I’ll do what I can, I can’t promise I can get you in.”

“Very nice of you,” Mayes nodded.

The guard led them the long way around the side of the coliseum to a smaller staff entrance, giving a knock. They waited a few minutes, and she made idle chit chat with them about their time at the academy, “How do you like it?”, “It’s been so many years since I was there,” “Who are your mentors?”

Icarus was starting to get quite excited, though doing his best to keep it in.

After a few minutes, a young human man came to the door to open it. “Can I help you?”

“Uh, yeah!” Icarus replied. “We’re here to see Damianos.”

The man looked up at the city guard in question.

“Mhm,” the guard nodded. “They have an appointment.”

“Uh… Thalasse’s not here right now.”

“Do you know where we might find him?” Pandora asked.

“Yeah, he said  _ bright and early _ , he just didn’t say where,” Mayes pressed.

With the presence of the city guard, the early time, and the reasonable wording, the human attendant seemed to be convinced. He probably didn’t care enough or get paid enough to argue anyways, and they gave over Damen’s address on a slip of paper. “Look, you’ll find him here. Here's never up at this time of the morning, so just… brace yourself for that.”

“Thank you so much,” Pandora replied.

Icarus was  _ ascending _ . “Yeah sure, no worries!”

Mayes nodded. “Very kind of you.”

“Thanks for your help- !”

The attendant shut the door as they were still talking.

Icarus turned to the guard. “And thank you for your help too, it was really nice.”

“Of course! I hope you have a great time in your final exams.”

“Thank you so much.”

“Have a good day,” Mayes nodded.

“See you later, thanks for your help!”

“Have a good one!” Pandora smiled.

The guard waved and walked off.

Icarus stared at the paper in his hand. “Oh my Gods… Okay, we should go to this. We should…” he handed it over to Mayes, who was giving him a look.

“That seems like really poor security to give out a gladiator’s address like that,” Pandora observed.

“Yeah, right? We could have been anyone.”

“Yeah… Let’s not question it, let’s just go.”

Mayes started to lead the way. They weren’t from Erran, but they had lived there for about six years now. Unfortunately, they were quite a long way from the address. They went to find themselves an oxen cart. There were a few merchants and working people now awake and waiting for carts, so they got in line.

It was the same slow driver.

“Hey, morning,” Mayes gave a salute.

“Alright!” the goblin grinned.

“Hello again,” Pandora nodded.

Icarus smiled. “Hey!”

“Where to?” the goblin asked. “Back to the academy?”

Pandora took the paper, handing it over.

“Oh! That’s quite a long way off. Bit of a rough bit of town…”

Mayes raised a brow. “Oh, really?”

“But, money is money,” he lashed the oxen again with the reins, and it began to plod along. “So, where are you off to today?”

“We’ve got our final exam coming up now,” Icarus replied. “So we’re just doing some last minute studies for it.”

“Great, great.”

“What’s your name?” Mayes asked.

“Eurylos,” they replied.

“Nice to see you again, Eurylos.”

“And nice to see you, nice to see you.”

They got into a bit of a cart jam down one of the narrower streets, with a bit of awkward reversing the ox to slide past another cart. Another driver frowned at them. “Come on!”

“Slow and steady wins the race,” Eurylos replied.

“Does it?” Pandora whispered.

“I mean, yeah,” Icarus shrugged. “In a lot of cases, that genuinely is the case. Because, if you used all of your energy up, then... The person that isn’t using all their energy up will be able to overtake you.”

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

“Yeah.”

The cart hobbled along through the city at a slow pace. It was probably a bit after 7:00am when they reached the address they had been given.

Icarus was rocking with the cart. “I didn’t think I could get seasick on land.”

“Why would we pay for these things?” Mayes whispered. “It would be quicker to walk.”

“It wouldn’t, though.”

They approached the limestone walls that surrounded the city, this time on the western side rather than the eastern side where they had entered before. The sun was just peaking over the walls, throwing a cold morning light over everything. They could see the sea gates from where they were, an enormous set of open gates with giant portcullis made of bronze spanning across the top of them. They led down to the halfway harbor where they could see a forest of red sails and dark wood, the Errani naval fleet. As they approached, the cart took a left, bringing them into a poorer district. The city was pretty wealthy, but compared to the area where Delphos was set, the buildings were quite crammed in, with less nice shops and more closed terraces, and a bit overpopulated.

Eventually, the cart pulled up outside a large building that looked to consist of several other, smaller buildings. They saw a few people hanging out their laundry between windows, with large sandstone steps leading up to the front doors. The driver looked at the address, pointing to a window.

“That one, I think.”

“Thanks,” Icarus smiled. “Appreciate it.”

“Thank you so much,” Pandora echoed.

Mayes eyed the house. “Thanks…”

“You need me to wait here, or…?”

“No,” they all assured him.

“You go about your day,” Icarus continued.

“You have a good day, Eurylos,” Mayes nodded. “You’re a winner.”

“Huh,” their driver nodded. “Thanks. Don’t know why you’d say that. See you again.”

“Have a good day,” Pandora repeated.

Eurylos set the oxen off, going slowly to plod away. By the time they reached the steps, the cart was only another thirty feet down the road.

“He’s a nice guy,” Icarus shrugged. “Why is it always him?”

The carts weren’t normally that slow. His oxen was very old looking.

Mayes was still inspecting the house. “This isn't exactly the glitz and glamour I was expecting of one of Erran’s star gladiators.”

Icarus tilted his head. “I like it. It’s kind of charming.”

“Homey,” Pandora agreed.

“Anyway, it’s not about that. Let’s…”

“We’ve wasted so much time already…”

“Let’s knock,” Mayes agreed.

As they watched the cart disappear, they stepped through a small half height gate, coming up the steps that led all the way up the outside of the building. They had a single file railing, and the group weaved around between the different doors to the insula apartments until they made it to the third floor at the top. Between two parts of the building, they found a small, dark, wooden door, with a number next to it that matched the address they were given.

Icarus looked at the door. “So this is it.”

“I suppose,” Pandora guessed.

“Okay…” his voice had raised in pitch.

“You want to do the honors?” Mayes offered.

Icarus sputtered a bit. “It’s just knocking on a door.”

“Go on then,” Pandora encouraged.

Icarus took a second, and then knocked three times before pausing and knocking once more. The response wasn’t immediate, but they did hear movement inside, with the sounds of grumbling and possibly tripping over something. After a few moments, the door was pulled open by a very sleepy looking Damianos with bedhead, standing in front of them in just his breeches.

He rubbed his eyes, glancing at the three students before blinking and properly looking at the group, doing a double take.

“We need to talk,” Icarus apologized.

“Yeah, uh… sure, sure. This about the… whacked out dream?”

“Thank Gods you had it as well,” Pandora sighed.

“Good,” Mayes nodded. “That’s a start.”

“Okay,” Icarus rolled his head back in relief. “Great.”

“So glad we weren’t going in and he had no idea what we were talking about,” Pandora agreed.

Damianos examined them. “How… how are you at my place?”

“You have very poor security at The Maw,” Mayes shrugged. “We kind of just asked for your address.”

“Yeah, they kind of just gave it to us,” Icarus shrugged.

Damen shook his head, still looking rather confused. “Come inside, I guess?”

“Thank you,” Pandora replied. “Sorry for walking you so early.”

“I was awake, I was…” he rubbed his face, pushing his hair back out of his face. “Yeah, come inside.”

He held the door open for them, and they filed in. Despite the golden stone on the exterior, the inside of the building was built out of timber, and some sort of clay and plaster walls painted white. It was quite a small space, with one wooden door that led to a bathroom, and a small kitchen space through an archway. Besides that, there was just a bed, and a small wooden table in the corner. It was cleanly kept, though some of last night’s clothes were strewn around the floor. His helmet was lying on the floor, likely the source of the sound of something Damen had tripped over. The rest of his weapons hung neatly on the wall above the little table.

“Make yourselves at home, I guess.”

“Sure,” Icarus nodded, turning to Mayes. “Have you got your paper? The drawing?”

Mayes unfurled the painting of horror. “Yeah.”

Damen looked over. “Oh, this is really good.”

“Thanks.”

“But, you saw this as well, in your dream?” Pandora clarified.

“Yeah,” Damen confirmed.

“You landed on its back and gave it a good shot,” Mayes nodded.

“Apparently so.”

“Yeah, you’re amazing,” Pandora followed.

“Oh, thanks.”

“Who was that person?” Icarus questioned.

Mayes looked up at the gladiator. “Yeah.”

“I don’t know,” Damen shrugged.

“You were talking to them like you knew them.”

“Yeah. Dream was crazy, right?”

“You didn’t recognize them or anything?” Pandora pressed. “Like, it’s not someone you know?”

“No.”

Mayes had an idea. “Last night, did you… see any green lights, on your way back home? Or feel any tremors?”

Damen shifted. “Um, I… to be honest with you…”

“You were drunk?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe?”

“Have you ever had a dream like that before?” Icarus continued.

“No.”

“But you knew immediately that, that’s the reason that we came here, that we had the same dream as you.”

Damen shrugged. “It… it didn’t feel like a dream.”

“No,” the students agreed.

“I’ve never had a dream like that before. I was completely in control of myself.”

“Then why…” Icarus shook his head, “You kept saying  _ them _ , and  _ you can have me, not them. _ ”

“I don’t know, I can’t tell you any more.”

“Did you… before all that,” Mayes wondered, “Did you also see the strings? The Fate?”

Damen seemed confused. “No?”

“What else happened in your dream?” Pandora continued. “Like, at the beginning?”

“I was in… some kind of a… temple? But like, an old structure.”

“With drawings on the floor of dragon’s faces?” Icarus pressed.

“No, no, like… just a… some kind of a regular temple. Old columns, something of the old empire, crumbling down. And then, I was heading down into the darkness… I don’t know, I… there was some sort of voice. But I can’t place it, and I can’t remember it that clearly, I can’t remember what it said. Looks like you three are way on top of this, and I’m not so much. Sorry I’m not so helpful.”

“It’s okay,” Pandora assured him.

“Just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” Icarus agreed.

“It’s okay,” Mayes repeated, turning to the others. “That phrase that you guys found in the book?”

“The Father Of All Monsters,” Pandora recalled.

“Does that mean anything to you?” they asked Damen.

Damen blinked. “No.”

Icarus shrugged. “Well, it’s the only lead we got, so.”

“Do you remember the temple?” Pandora continued. “Like, do you recognize it from somewhere you’ve been before, perhaps?”

“Or any symbols that would have been inside it?” Mayes added.

“Uh, no,” he shrugged. “Do any of you?”

They didn’t.

“Just in case you did,” Pandora shrugged. “Or, did you recognize the voice at all? Did it sound like someone you might know?”

“No.”

“What did the voice say to you?” Icarus wondered.

“It’s kinda hazy…” Damen trailed off, thinking for a moment. “I don’t know, maybe I’ll remember better when I’ve had some breakfast.”

“Sure,” Icarus backed off. “Sorry. We can go get breakfast?”

“Sure, we can go get something, or I can make something here, I mean…”

“Whatever works,” Mayes shrugged.

“Whatever,” Pandora echoed.

Icarus seemed surprised by the offer. “Sure! I mean, we wouldn’t want to put you out. I can help, if you want?”

“No, it’s good,” he brushed him off. “I got it. Just make yourselves comfortable, I guess.”

“Okay!”

Damianos headed off into the little kitchen area, humming to himself as he left the three students at the small table. Icarus wasn’t sure where to look. Damen was still only wearing his breeches.

Mayes pulled out their notebook, trying to recall any symbols or tile patterns from the dream. Over the course of the next ten minutes or so, they were able to paint out the basic shape of the hydra heads they had seen on the floor. They didn’t have their full painting kit with them, but they got out the shape. It didn’t ring any bells to anyone, but it was a pretty accurate portrayal of what they had seen. Mayes added it to their collection of symbols.

“You’re really good,” Icarus commented.

“You are,” Pandora agreed.

“Thanks. I do a lot of painting in my spare time,” they explained.

“Yeah, I can tell!” Icarus smiled. “It’s like, incredible.”

“Thank you.”

“What sort of things do you paint for fun?” Pandora wondered. “Like landscapes, or people?”

“Um, mostly landscapes and animals.”

“That’s so cool.”

“My mom used to sell similar kinds of paintings when I was younger.”

Icarus grinned. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s awesome.”

“Yeah, we used to do it together, and now I kind of… do it by myself.”

“That’s really nice,” Pandora smiled.

“Thanks. It’s… a good way to keep focused.”

Icarus tilted his head. “I’d like to see the rest of your paintings, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh sure. Most of them are back home, this is just… this is just…” they began to flick through the pages. It was almost incomprehensible, though they could pick out a few religious symbols and such inside. “This is just notes.”

“Your notes are like, really pretty.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s okay, I just scribble.”

“I mean, this is kind of my equivalent of scribbling.”

“Most talented scribbles I’ve ever seen,” Icarus laughed.

“Very artistic scribbling,” Pandora agreed.

Mayes chuckled. “Thank you.”

“It’s okay,” Icarus smiled.

“I wonder if anyone, like, any of the professors, might know any of these symbols, or the monster we saw,” Pandora wondered.

“Maybe,” Mayes considered.

“I mean,” Icarus shrugged. “I’m probably… No, I’m definitely gonna ask Lorakai about it.”

“Yeah,” Pandora agreed.

From the kitchen, Damianos yelled back. “You should ask Nikostratus.”

“Nikostratus?”

“He doesn’t know that much, but I think he’s got a sister who does stuff like that.”

“Who is Nikostratus?”

“Oh, he was with us last night.”

“Oh, the other guy,” Mayes nodded.

“The gladiator?” Pandora guessed.

“Yeah,” Damen came out with a platter, serving out bread, cheese, cold cuts of meat, honey, some kind of leftover pie, and a pot of herbal tea. “Sorry it’s not much, but,” he shrugged.

“It looks great, thank you very much,” Pandora accepted.

“It’s lovely, thank you,” Mayes nodded.

Icarus shifted in his seat a bit. “Yeah, looks… looks amazing, thank you. You didn’t have to.”

Mayes began to pour tea for everyone.

Damen looked down at himself. “Oh, uh…” he scurried over to the other side of the bed, and in another thirty seconds, he had a tunic over his previously bare chest. He came back to the table, sat himself down on a stool, and dug straight into it. “Just, go ahead. Eat.”

“Yeah, sure, thanks,” Icarus gave a small smile.

Pandora went for the honey while Icarus took some of everything, and they settled in.

Damen leaned an elbow on the table. “So they really just gave you my address?”

“We did-  _ you _ did,” Mayes corrected, looking to Icarus, “Come up with some very convincing half truths.”

“I kinda told them, yeah, bit of a lie to get it,” Icarus admitted.

“Okay?” Damen prompted.

“But, I said that… because we’re taking our final exam now, that you’d agreed to show us some moves that we would be able to use, and, so…”

“I mean, you seem like a nice enough guy,” Mayes shrugged. “And they believed it.”

“Yeah, so…”

“We just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Pandora explained.

“Yeah.”

“Huh,” Damen nodded. “Well I’m okay,” he leaned back in his seat, grinning. “Looks like you three are okay as well.”

“Yeah, but, we kind of watched you get your throat slit last night,” Icarus countered.

Damen opened his mouth, then shut it with a grimace. “Yeah, I don’t want to… don’t really want to think about that. Bad dreams, you know? Except it doesn’t feel like a dream, I know, but like… I dunno, it’s not a place any of us know. Some freaky future vision, maybe.”

“Let’s hope not,” Mayes replied.

“Yeah.”

“I think it’s something that should be treated with the utmost severity, but, let’s hope it’s not the future.”

“Heh, well, you three got exams to focus on, and that kind of stuff. Doing your smart stuff.”

“There we go,” Mayes realized. “It’s probably not something to do with the exam, because why would they involve…?” they gestured to Damen.

“I know,” Icarus nodded.

“Well I don’t know, could be anything,” Pandora reminded them. “Maybe he is involved. And he’s just a very good actor. He is a performer after all.”

Mayes stared at Damen. “You are a very good actor…”

Damen squinted in confusion. “Thanks?”

It was hard to read him, but he seemed to be telling the truth, at least on the surface. There wasn’t anything in his posture or expression that suggested he had any capacity to try and hide something from them right now. He looked pretty tired and worn out still, and a bit hungover. If he was lying right now, he’d probably be fumbling over his words.

“Okay,” Icarus apologized. “Sorry to bother you, then.”

“It’s just good to know you’re okay,” Pandora followed.

“Yeah,” Damen nodded. “You too. You kids are alright.”

“Thank you for helping us, man,” Icarus smiled.

“Thanks,” Mayes followed. “So… in the event of any future strange dreams, should we, like… come check on you here, or?”

“I can send messages,” Pandora offered.

“That’s good.”

“If you wouldn’t mind?”

“Yeah, why not,” Damen agreed. “Useful skill.”

“Yeah!”

“But, I mean, I’m sure you can probably imagine that if you three are okay after a freaky dream, I’m probably okay.”

“We didn’t… get…” Icarus shook his head, stopping himself.

“I don’t make a habit of having freaky dreams that involve other people,” Pandora covered.

“No,” Mayes followed. “And I meant more, just to discuss. If we figure out who that person is, or if one of us figures out who that person is.”

“And like I said,” Icarus pressed on, “We didn’t get… taken down, like that, in… whatever dream or, what did you say it might be?”

“Future vision,” Pandora suggested.

“Future vision.”

“I’m hoping it’s not a future vision,” Mayes repeated.

“Or, uh, what was that thing we discovered earlier?” Icarus looked through the notes. “That you brought up?”

“The Domain of Fate?”

“The Domain of Fate. I don’t know, just spitballing.”

“Yeah. Well, it seems we’re at a dead end,” Damen shrugged. “Not to be dismissive, but I don’t know where to go from here, so… Oh, Nikostratus. Speak to his sister.”

“Sure,” Mayes agreed. “Do you know where we can find her?”

“Yeah, she’ll probably be at the match, afterwards.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see if I can hook you up.”

“Thank you,” Pandora agreed. “I guess we’ll see you then?”

“I guess so.”

“Thank you for breakfast.”

“That's okay.”

Icarus shook himself from staring across the table. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Thanks a lot,” Mayes followed.

“You three take care, alright?” Damen replied.

“And you,” Pandora followed.

“Yeah, and you,” Icarus echoed.

“And try not to think about this too much,” Damen advised. “You got important shit to do.”

“Yeah,” Pandora worried. “Yeah, we really do.”

“Like, studying and stuff. I joked last night, but like… that’s important. Get it done. Not everybody can.”

There was a beat of silence before Icarus nodded again. “Yeah. We’ll stop taking up any of your time.”

“We’ll get out of your hair,” Pandora agreed.

Damen looked pretty groggy. “I’m probably gonna go back to bed.”

Icarus stood. “Thank you, for breakfast. We should go.”

Damen showed them to the door and waved goodbye as they left. Mayes gave a little wave back, and Damen smiled at the group before his expression changed into something more serious, and he closed the door.

Icarus put a hand on his face, letting out a long breath. Mayes put a hand on his back, and Icarus glanced up. “Hm?”

Mayes gave them a pat.

“What?”

“Nothing,” they smiled. “Alright, let’s get back.”

“We should go,” Pandora agreed.

“Let’s get back to the academy, and see how the day goes until later.”

“I’m gonna look for a cab,” Icarus announced. “But this time, I will be picky.”

“No more Eurylos?” Mayes teased.

“No.”

“The chances of him still being in this area…”

“Please, no.”

“...I hope are slim. But, with how fast that ox moves… he might still be down the street.”

The three of them laughed, and they were able to find a different ride, which took them back to Delphos in only thirty minutes. As they came through the grand entrance, they saw Sebaste in the corridor. “Oh! There you three are, we’ve been looking for you.”

“You have?” Pandora worried.

“Morning,” Mayes nodded.

“Sorry,” Icarus smiled. “We were, you know, taking a morning stroll. Waking up.”

“Well, your mentors went to get you from your rooms, but you weren’t there, so,” the professor frowned.

“Oh! Uh, sorry.”

“That’s okay, that’s okay. We just thought we should talk about your first task.”

“Sure.”

“Well, if you will? To the classrooms?”

“Yeah, great. We’re here now! Let’s do it.”

The professor led them across the courtyard to one of the other buildings, where there were a number of classrooms. A few classes were in session as it neared 10:00am, and they were brought to an empty one. The professor gestured for them to take a seat in the front row.

“Right. How are you feeling this morning?”

“Super,” Icarus smiled.

“Great,” Mayes followed.

Sebaste nodded. “Good.”

“I can admit, I’m really nervous,” Pandora offered.

“Well, I don’t know what you’ve heard about your first task, if anything yet…”

“Yeah pretty much nothing,” Icarus grinned.

“It’s really secretive,” Mayes agreed.

“But it’s the first of three,” Sebaste explained. “As well as some written exams, which will take place with your personal mentors, nothing to do with each other. But these three physical and mental tasks, you will be facing together as a team.”

“Great,” Icarus smiled.

“Good team,” Mayes nodded.

“The three of you will be graded separately,” Sebaste explained. “So it’s important for each of you to play into your strengths, solve problems, put all of your efforts into the combat, and you will be graded individually. You will be monitored throughout, and whilst there will be real danger as there often is in any of your contracts, no threat to your lives. We’re not going to let any of you die.”

“So all the…”

“Everyone’s been lying to us,” Icarus chuckled.

“Everyone’s been saying,  _ oh my Gods, people die _ …” Mayes explained.

Sebaste shook their head. “It seems like lots of students like to take liberties with the contract we ask you to sign, an oath of silence about the contents of the task.”

“Right,” Icarus nodded.

“They’re just scaremongering,” Pandora sighed.

“See? I told you it would be fine.”

“You can relax,” Mayes grinned.

“Not that much,” she countered.

“Your first task,” Sebaste continued, “Is quite an infamous one. You will be facing Delphos’s Labyrinth.”

Pandora gasped. “We’re doing the Labyrinth!?”

Mayes pumped a fist. “Yes! I was hoping it would be the Labyrinth.”

“I’m sure you know, it’s a task based inside a maze,” Sebaste continued. “This maze is adapted to suit your skill set, and push your limits.”

Icarus was beaming. “I’m so excited.”

“A chance to flex,” Mayes nodded.

Pandora was already taking notes.

“You need to bring back to us The Six Principles,” Sebaste explained. “What that means is up to you to determine when you get there. There will be tools to aid you scattered throughout the maze. You can use any skills you have available to you, and whilst you solve the problems, there will be random, not controlled, combat. How you deal with that is up to you. In terms of supplies, as we don’t expect to send you into this maze unaided, you will be expected to acquire your own, on the Academy’s budget. And, you may take whatever you need, but this will become a debt you need to repay to the school.”

“Understandable,” Icarus nodded.

  
  


“Is that through contracts?” Pandora asked.

“Through contracts, or through personal means if you wish to,” Sebaste explained. “Some students wish to dip into savings to pay this back, or others wish to take on part time work. But, in the meantime,” he opened a big folder on his desk, pushing his little round glasses further up his nose. “Here,” he signed a piece of paper, a slip of permission allowing them to go into any of the stores in the Imperial Square and purchase whatever they thought they might need for the task. He went on to explain that they could return unused items to the school or to the shops, and clear that debt, as long as they were in perfect condition. Alternatively, they could pay whatever debt was left through taking up more contracts or paying out of their allowance.

“If there’s anything you think you need, any cost, it’s up to you to be in control of not being too ridiculous. You have… a short amount of time before the task commences. We won’t tell you exactly when, but it’s best that you see to your affairs quickly.”

“Sure,” Icarus nodded. “I suppose, we shouldn’t leave our bedrooms early in the morning anymore? Just in case?”

“Probably for the best.”

“Right.”

“You would have automatically failed if we had come to find you this morning and you hadn’t been there.”

Three pairs of eyebrows shot up.

“Oh,” Icarus gave a nervous laugh. “No more 5:00am jogs for me. Okay, no problem, we can do that.”

“For the time being, just make the most of the Academy's resources.”

“Yep,” Mayes nodded.

“Do your best to practice.”

“WIll do,” Icarus grinned.

“We will,” Pandora followed.

“And good luck with the task,” he smiled.

“Thanks Sebaste,” Icarus replied.

“Thanks,” Mayes nodded.

Pandora shifted in her seat. “Um, did you say that our mentors were looking for us?”

“They were this morning,” Sabaste responded. “I’m sure they are now.”

“Okay.”

“Oh, we should go find them,” Icarus realized.

“Yeah, we can go,” Mayes agreed.

“Thanks!”

“Thank you very much,” Pandora echoed.

Sebaste gave them a nod. “Enjoy your days.”

“Will do,” Icarus smiled. “You too.”

Sebaste let them leave, and they regrouped in the hallway.

“Right,” Icarus clapped his hands. “We can’t concentrate on what happened last night.”

“No, this is more pressing,” Pandora agreed.

“Exams first,” Mayes decided.

“Exam comes first.”

“And like Damianos said, we’ve got nothing to go off, so,” Icarus reasoned, “We will concentrate on what we can control right now.”

“And everyone is fine,” Mayes continued. “So.”

“Exactly. Everyone’s fine, it was just some weird… collective…”

“Yeah, we should each go and find our mentors, and see what they want to say.”

“Yeah. I’ll… catch you guys later?”

“Yeah, we should go check out the stores.”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah, we should choose our supplies together, I think,” Pandora agreed.

“Make sure we’re coordinated,” Mayes nodded.

“Shall we say…” Icarus thought, “Meet at the entrance in a few hours?”

“No problem.”

“Great. See you both later.”

“Okay,” Pandora nodded. “See you later.”

  
  


Mayes went to the little garden area in the school, finding their usual patch they tended to from time to time, simply waiting, and expecting Citra to creep up on them at some point. She found them there after about a half an hour, coming up behind them. Mayes was comfortably settled into examining the flowers, doing a bit of gardening, when she suddenly lightly smacked them on the back of the head.

“Ah!”

She smirked down at them.

“Hey,” Mayes greeted.

“You’ve been out awhile.”

“There was… some important training to do this morning. Final exams, and all that.”

“Right. Nothing you can tell me about?”

Mayes grinned. “I’m allowed to keep a few secrets, right?”

“Hm. So, indeterminate amount of time left. Could be a few hours, could be a few days.”

“Yes.”

“Are you ready?”

“Always.”

“Are you sure?”

Mayes met her eye. “Absolutely.”

“See,” she sighed, “I think it’s important that you... pass this on the first try.”

“Okay... I wasn’t planning on failing it.”

“No, but, I know you can get caught up in your thoughts.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve got good teammates.”

“This isn’t about your teammates,” she warned.

“I know, Citra.”

“And I know what you want to do,” she continued. “And if you’ve got any chance of doing it, you prove yourself to me here and now, on this task. I don’t want to see you repeating this next year.”

“I think it’s safe to say, if I fail, maybe there won’t be a next year.”

She examined them. “...Perhaps.”

“Perhaps.”

“I have faith in you.”

“I know. And I thank you for that,” Mayes nodded. “When I pass, drinks on me. I’ll take you out for dinner.”

“Maybe. We’ll see about that. If you pass.”

“When,” they assured her. “...Thanks for making this… feel more like home.”

She shook her head. “You’ve got nothing to thank me for.”

“Yeah I do,” they smiled, giving her a nudge.

She put a hand on their head, ruffling their hair a bit. “You should be practicing,” she sang.

“I will!”

“Time is ticking!”

She walked away. Mayes squinted after, plotting. They bent and took a little stone, throwing it to hit her on the shoulder.

Citra glanced back. “Hm. You’re not going to impress me that easily.”

Mayes chuckled. As she disappeared from the garden, Mayes heard her voice once more in the distance. “Practicing!”

Mayes went to practice. They found one of their normal sparring partners, a kobold named Adelina, who was very fast and adept. The two of them did pretty well, rather perfectly matched, and she was very impressed with Mayes’ skills.

  
  


Pandora went to Alexander’s office with Puck on her shoulder. She knocked on the door, and his voice answered. “Come in!”

She did, and he turned to the doorway to greet her. “Pandora,” he smiled.

She gave a nervous grin in return. “Hi.”

“Please, come in. Where have you been?”

“I’m sorry I missed you this morning. I was studying, I had to go to the library early.”

“That’s okay. You worrying about your exam?”

“Yeah, like… I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Come, sit down.”

She sat opposite him, and he closed the book he had been looking at, shuffling it aside into a pile of books.

“What were you reading?” she smiled.

“Oh, you know, just some old spell notes. I have also been thinking about your exam, so.”

“Yeah… I don’t know, I don't know if… If I was just chosen just because I happened to stay? Not because I'm physically ready? Like… I was so awful in that fight against the hill giant. Like, everything I casted was going wide, and like, it’s stupid stuff, stuff that we’ve gone over so many times…”

“Pandora, you are ready,” he assured her. “Okay? I was thinking about putting you up for your final exam as it was. You just have this thing, and I know we’ve been over this. You get anxious, and you don’t focus. It’s something you need to work on, that you still need to work on… but I have no doubt that you can prove yourself here. Your skills as a mage, they are undeniable.”

“I guess I’m just afraid of failing,” she admitted.

“And that’s what’s holding you back. It’s not about failing, it’s about simply showcasing what you’re capable of.”

“What if I let the others down? Because I know we’re marked individually, and… but what if something I do impacts on something that they do, and then, and then they can’t do what they’re supposed to do, and I’m bringing the team down, and… I don’t know. Sorry, I didn’t sleep very well.”

“That’s okay. Worrying?”

“I suppose. Bad dreams. Really weird stuff, actually.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Pandora told him the contents of the shared dream, and what they had all seen on the steps the night before, spilling everything.

He looked very concerned by the end of it, and confused. “This is very strange…”

“I know, it’s really weird. That’s what I was trying to find out this morning.”

“I understand… That’s gonna throw you off.”

“I don’t know if it’s nerves for the exam, and stress, and everything else just piling up, but it wouldn't have meant the others had the same dream.”

“Why don’t you leave it in my very capable hands,” he assured her.

“I know,” she smiled. “Capable hands.”

“I will look into it for you, and you can set it aside so you can concentrate on your studies.”

“You’d do that?”

“Of course, of course.”

“Thank you. You’re the best,” she sighed.

“Only doing what I should. Now, we need to think about how we can settle those nerves. What if… I was to give you something new to concentrate on. I know, when you’re going over and over things that you’ve practiced for months, that’s when you start to stress. You do much better with something new.”

“What sort of something new?”

“Hmm… Do you want something… There’s something I think you should have, and there’s something I think you’d want to take. But, I’ll only give you one of them.”

“Okay… That's very cryptic.”

He took out the book he had been looking at earlier, flipping through it, his tongue on the side of his face as he flipped through the pages. Pandora rested her elbows on the desk, her face in her hands as she stared at him dreamily.

“This one… okay…” he went through a desk drawer, and took out two spell scrolls.

Puck puffed up their feathers.

“One of these I think you should take,” he repeated. “The other, I think you would want. I’m not going to tell you which one’s which.”

“...Would I not want the thing that you think I should have?”

“I don’t think you’d not want it, I just think you’d want the other thing more. So this is for your consideration,” he put them on the desk, sliding them across to her. She regarded them for a while before he spoke again. “You can read them if you want to.”

“I can read them?”

“Yeah, you can make your choice. I will be… bearing your choice in mind.”

“Okay…” she unscrolled both of them. Puck hopped down, hopping between them. One was a defensive spell, a kind of shield. The other was an attack spell that would cause the victim to burst out in laughter, distracting them as they fell to the floor. “Oh, these are both very good, I’ve heard about these.”

“Something for you to practice.”

“I mean, I could do with defending myself a bit more. I think… I’m going to take the shield one?”

“Okay. Completely your choice, it’s yours.”

“Thank you very much,” she took it, rolling it up and putting it in her stuff.

“Now, the amount of time between now and your first task is… not something I can share with you, but you haven’t got long.”

“I know.”

“It’s probably best that you… If you’re planning on learning that, putting some time into that today, probably tonight.”

“I will. I’ll learn it straightaway, as soon as I leave the office.”

“Good. Just concentrate on that. When you’re done with your first task, I want to see it in use.”

“Absolutely. Thank you so much.”

“No problem. Just, head up, and concentrate on focusing on the task at hand. Your teammates can handle themselves, okay? All of you are highly skilled.”

“...Yeah.”

“And I have faith in you, Pandora.”

“...I just have a lot of people I want to make proud. I want to make you proud.”

“You will. You have.”

She blushed.

“And you will in the next few days,” he continued. “So, just concentrate on that. I will look into your other thing.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “Like, it’s the sort of thing that I would want to just look through books for hours over, you know?”

“And you will have hours when your exams are over.”

“I know, I know, that’s the most important thing right now.”

“It is.”

“Thank you, thank you again so much…”

“You know where to find me if you need me again.”

“Yeah, I know. Thank you Alexander.”

“I’ll see you later, Pandora.”

She gathered up her bits and pieces. As she left, she saw him already pulling more books onto his desk, opening them up and burying himself in them. She left, shutting the door behind her, and took a minute to let out a breath.

Puck pecked at her hair.

“No, shut up!”

  
  


Icarus looked at the sun, trying to judge where Lorakai would be based on the time of day. He headed to the refectory, where his mentor was probably getting tea. Just down through the forum was a large open space where a lot of students gathered at their leisure outside of classes, and through that was a food market area with all kinds of hot food and cold drinks. He found Lorakai at a quiet table in the back, with a few scrolls he had been scribbling onto, and a steaming cup of tea.

“Always find you here at this time of day,” Icarus grinned.

“What of it?”

“Ah, nothing, just... old men like their routines,” he teased.

Lorakai tutted. “Old man? Watch who you’re calling old, kid. Sit your ass down.”

Icarus sunk into a seat with a stretch.

“So yeah. There’s something on your mind,” Lorakai guessed. “Spill.”

“There’s quite a few things on my mind.”

“Well… spill one after the other.”

Icarus took a moment to look at the table. “I already know the answer to this one, but, I want to hear it from you.”

“Okay?” he straightened up more seriously, leaning on the table.

“...I got into… the school. And, you know… my class… on my first try.”

“Yeah?”

“And, I’m…” Icarus laughed. “...Always being told by other people that it’s because of you. And that, I’m getting into a final exam because of you, and that I will pass this no matter what I do, because of you. And I know it’s not true, but, I…”

Lorakai shook his head. “Kid… it’s not. Those people are just, do you know what that is? Jealousy. That’s what it is. Because you’re talented. You were talented when I met you. You were, that was… what, nearly ten years ago? And you were already using healing magic like some of the kids in Anterus can’t do now. I had nothing to do with your entry exam, and you know that.”

“I know.”

“I mean that!” Lorakai smiled.

“I know!”

“You’re looking at me like you don’t believe me!”

“I do believe you!” Icarus grinned.

Lorakai whacked him with his cane under the table.

“Hey! I do believe you.”

“Good,” Lorakai nodded. “You better. And no, you’re not getting into your final exam because of me. Yes I argued your case in front of Octavia, but… it was a good case. You made the right choice, I would have done the same.”

“I knew you would.”

“Yeah.”

Icarus shifted in his seat. “...I guess then, the second thing is a bit more…” he sighed. “I don’t really know how to explain it. But, when we were walking back last night… First of all, I should probably tell you that we got jumped by some of the other students.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it - ”

“No no no, I am gonna worry about it, stop what you’re saying and tell me about that.”

“No. They were just, like you said. They were, I guess, just jealous, or upset.”

“So that’s where this is coming from,” Lorakai frowned. “Who was it?”

“I’m not saying.”

Lorakai leaned forward slightly. “Who was it?”

“...I didn’t get a clear view.”

His mentor sighed. “Icarus.”

Icarus leaned on the table, smiling wide as usual. “It’ll just make them hate me more.”

Lorakai leaned back, relenting. “They should be punished. You know you’re not supposed to fight in the streets.”

“Yes, I know.”

“If it will make you feel better, we’ll punish you as well?”

Icarus chuckled. “I’m not telling you who it was, that’s not the important thing.”

“Fine.”

“The three of us, Mayes, Pandora, and I, we saw… something? Like, green spirits erupted out of the ground at us, and shrieked, and we felt like we couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move…”

“Sure you weren’t drinking too much?”

“I definitely didn’t drink too much, you know me. I can handle more than you old man.”

Lorakai raised a brow at the tease, but let him continue.

“We all felt it,” Icarus pressed, “And saw it. We told Zyki the moment we got back in the school, I’m surprised he didn’t say anything about it. Anyway, it gets… I guess weirder? Because last night, the three of us had the exact same- it wasn’t the exact same, it was, but we were… in the same dream together.”

“...Alright?”

“It felt real, and, uh, there was somebody else there as well, there was one of the gladiators? And I know, I know,” Icarus rubbed his face, catching Lorakai’s smirk, “I know I’ve had dreams about the gladiators before, but it’s not that.”

“Okay…”

“There was a  _ huge _ creature, with like, snakes? On its fingers? Um, dragon heads? On its fingers? And it was insanely powerful, and, I promise you, it felt like it was real. And it was in front of me. And when I woke up this morning, I found the other two, and they had the exact same experience. And we went and found the gladiator, and he also- Don’t give me that look- He also had that experience.”

Lorakai took in the information. “Well, it sounds like you had a premonition.”

“...No, I don’t want that,” Icarus shook his head.

“Well, what other explanation is there for it?”

“I don’t know! There was, uh, a red string, and scissors, and three women, and that bit was all very flashy. I don’t remember much of it but… the fight with this thing was very real, and very... scary!” he laughed again.

“...Well, you know… premonitions aren’t always things that have to come to pass. Maybe… one possible future? One possible outcome?”

“Like a warning, maybe?”

“Yeah.”

“Because then we can try and avoid that, from happening?”

“But, as fate happens to like, you try and avoid something happening…”

“And then it’ll just happen,” Icarus rolled his eyes.

“You just play into it.”

“Yeah…”

“What’s gonna happen is what’s gonna happen,” Lorakai concluded.

Icarus grinned. “I don’t believe that.”

“No, of course you wouldn’t,” he teased.

“I dunno,” Icarus shrugged. “I gotta concentrate on the exam. But that definitely threw me for a loop this morning.”

As they continued to talk, Lorakai smiled, but Icarus saw a flash of concern across his face that he quickly tried to mask under another grin. “Your exam is important, okay? I don’t doubt you have the skill for it, but, I’m also not going to lie to you and say,  _ hey I think you’re gonna pass first time, _ you know?”

“I know.”

“A lot of kids don’t, a lot of kids don’t stick it out.”

“Yeah. I’m pretty tenacious when I want to be though,” he grinned.

“I know. And… not hot-headed, that’s not the word I’m going to use,” Lorakai mused for a bit. “Explosive?”

Icarus chuckled. “I don’t think that’s better.”

“I wasn’t trying to be better.”

“Alright, you succeeded.”

“Yeah,” he grinned. “Just watch that, okay? You don’t normally do teamwork. I know you care a lot about people you work with, but… you gotta see what you can do as a team, you know? This isn’t just about you.”

“I know. I know. The other two are great, though.”

“They are. Great students.”

“They’re really talented so, I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

“Their mentors were telling me all about them last night. Don’t think you could be with a better team.”

“Naw, me neither.”

“I’d love to see you succeed…”

“Yeah, I will.”

“But,” Lorakai continued, “If you don’t, it’s just another knock of experience, right?”

“Exactly. Oh well. You owe me a drink,” Icarus leaned back.

“No, I don’t think I do.”

“No, you do.”

They repeated themselves for a moment, teasing and arguing until Lorakai slid his cup across the table to him. “Here, have a tea.”

“...That’ll do.”

They had tea. After a short while, Lorakai sent him to collect more breakfast from around the tables, and the two of them sat and ate until they were absolutely stuffed. Lorakai was in no rush to make Icarus overprepare.

  
  


Pandora picked up the materials for learning the spell provided by the school, spending an hour learning it, and copying it into her spellbook to practice with her arcane focus. It didn’t take long before she was standing in one of the interior training rooms, throwing up a shield made of a shimmering light over herself that covered her for a second, invisible to the naked eye. Another student she knew from Anterus, by the name of Lilani, a fire genasi, came up to her as she was practicing and offered to help. They worked together for a few hours until the spell was perfected, and she had to meet the others.

“Thank you so much Lilani.”

“No problem!”

“It’s good.”

“You’re doing really great. You always are, top of your class. I’m always so impressed.”

“You’re too nice,” Pandora smiled.

The time came around, and the three of them met on the front steps of Delphos to head back over to the Imperial Square and do some shopping. It was early afternoon, and a very different scene in the daytime than it was in the evening, with lots of merchant carts popping up and market stalls around the space that people had been relaxing and drinking in last night, as well as a lot of shops. They saw clothing shops, expensive clothing shops, regular clothing shops, homewares, and lots of the terraces now serving lunch spreads rather than the copious amounts of alcohol from the night before.

The following shops stood out to them: Alyssa’s Arms, a blacksmith, The Alchemy Beaker, an alchemist, Ekemon’s Enchantments, an enchanter, as well as a general supply store that catered to Delphos students, where they had all been before to get papers, ink, and ingredients for classes and contracts.

“We’re going to need potions,” Pandora declared.

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed.

“That’s a start,” Mayes nodded.

“So I guess… the alchemists?” she advised.

“Yeah, see where we go from there.”

They headed into the Alchemists Beaker. Icarus looked much more relaxed than he had earlier. Behind the counter there was a quite young looking human of indeterminate gender, leaning on a stool on the counter. They probably weren’t the alchemist, but a regular employee. They saw the three of them walk in and smiled.

“Hi,” Icarus smiled back.

“Hi,” they replied, leaning over the counter.

“Hi there,” Pandora greeted.

“What can I do?”

“We’d like to pick some supplies,” Icarus explained.

“Potions,” the other two overlapped.

Icarus held out the paper. “We got the slip from Delphos?”

The employee took it. “Huh, final exam students? How exciting,” they smiled again. “What can I get for you?”

“What do you got?”

“Yeah, what potions do you have available?” Pandora asked.

“Maybe some healing potions?” Mayes suggested.

“Healing potions, and then, like, anything else that might be useful for going in the Labyrinth?”

“Okay… the Labyrinth, huh? Scary stuff… Um… I can do you a potion of solace,” they pulled out a small crystal vial with a blue liquid on the inside that seemed to reflect light in a slight sheen.

“What’s that do?” Icarus wondered.

The employee explained how it would rejuvenate their magical abilities.

“How much is that?”

“Hm, about 60 gold?”

“Okay, good to know, good to know.”

“Is that with the student discount?” Pandora asked.

“Oh, student discount… um, I’d do 45,” they revised.

“45?”

“Okay, that’s better,” Icarus smiled. “I bet you could do a bit lower though.”

“Maybe,” they replied. “Depends what you want to buy.”

“Maybe if we get like a package deal,” Mayes nodded.

“Let’s see what else, and maybe we can get a package,” Pandora agreed.

The employee looked between them. “Do you know Keoghtom? Keoghtom makes ointment, we have some of that in stock.”

“What is it?”

“Well, it will…” they pulled out a glass jar, three inches across, with a little fabric thing tied to the bottom and a wax stamp holding it together, the image of a circle with an arrow going through it stamped into the wax. “It’s got a thick mixture in it, here,” they peeled it open and let them smell it. It smelled strongly of aloe vera.

“That smells refreshing,” Icarus nodded.

“It’s an ointment, and you apply it on your skin, it’ll make you feel peppy, stronger again, and cure you of any diseases or that kind of thing.”

“Okay.”

“That’s good to know,” Pandora agreed.

“And how much would that be?”

“120,” they answered. “So with your student discount, maybe…” they looked at the trio, giving them a sly, flirty smile. Icarus grinned back. “Hmm… 70.”

“That’s pretty good,” Pandora replied.

“Oh, I have… a filter of love,” they grinned.

“Oh?”

“Do you not know what that is? Have you not heard of that?”

“...No?”

“Oh, come one, I’ve heard so many stories about people using this in Delphos,” they leaned over the counter.

“What is it?”

“Well, someone drinks it… you know,  _ you _ drink it, that’s the purpose, you drink it… ten minutes after, you become… charmed. By the first creature that you see.”

“Oh,” Pandora nodded.

Mayes grimaced. “I don’t like that.”

“I mean, if you were to give it to someone else,” Pandora explained.

“Yeah, I don’t like that.”

“If the first person that they see is a species and gender that you’re normally attracted to,” the employee continued, “You regard it as true love for an hour.”

The employee sighed, and looked at the trio dreamily as they leaned over the counter.

Pandora thought for a moment. “I don’t know if that will help us. Anything else?”

“Anything else?” Icarus echoed.

Mayes was still frowning. “That’s creepy.”

“I dunno,” they shrugged. “I’ve heard lots of stories of people loving that at Delphos.”

Icarus gave a questioning look to Pandora, but she shook her head. “Must have passed me by, I’ve never heard of it,” she explained.

“We have a potion of cat agility,” the employee continued.

“I do like cats,” Icarus considered.

“I do like cats,” Mayes repeated.

Pandora looked between the two. “Who doesn’t like cats?”

“Psychopaths,” Icarus decided.

“They’re really cute,” Mayes continued.

“It buffs up how dexterous you are,” the employee explained.

“Okay. How much for that?”

“235.”

“And with the discount?” Pandora reminded them.

“200.”

“That’s a lot… But I mean, could be helpful for you guys.”

“Perhaps,” Mayes thought.

“And then, we just got regular healing potions,” the employee shrugged. “50, so… 25.”

“That’s good,” Pandora nodded. “We could do with a few of those.”

“And the strong ones are normally like 120 so, 70.”

“Okay,” Mayes nodded.

“That’s good,” Pandora agreed. “Like, we should take a few healing potions at least.”

“Oh yeah,” Icarus seconded.

“For sure,” Mayes followed.

“You know, I maybe wouldn’t always give this much of a discount,” the shopkeep grinned. “But, seeing as the three of you are doing your final exams, and…”

“It’s so hard for us, you know?” Icarus needled.

“You’re so generous,” Pandora agreed.

The employee giggled a bit.

“And you would be doing us such a huge favor, I doubt we’d be able to even get through the exam without your help,” Icarus pressed.

They giggled again. “Well, just tell me what you want.”

“Okay, I think maybe we should have one healing potion each, at least,” Pandora strategized.

“Even two. And a greater one,” Icarus suggested.

“Maybe two.”

“I’m happy to take on that debt.”

“We can all take on that debt.”

“Yeah, to be fair,” Mayes agreed. “One of each?”

“One of each,” Pandora agreed. “So one greater and one regular.”

Icarus shook his head. “I think even two regular, one greater each.”

“Okay, so what is that, like… 120 gold each?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Mayes nodded.

“Oh, and I think we have some instant comfort!” the employee remembered.

“What’s that?” Pandora asked.

“Here,” they dug around for awhile, finding a dusty box behind the counter, pulling out a very dusty looking potion bottle. Shaking it, there was a white murky looking liquid inside that frothed up as they shook it. “Makes you more constitute with your spellcasting. Clears the mind, keeps you completely relaxed and free of worries.”

“Oh my Gods, it’s like anti-anxiety… how much is it?”

“Normally like 40, so I guess like 25?”

“25 is not bad. I… I mean, I’m happy to pay for that myself, to be honest, with the money I have.”

“Yeah, sure,” Icarus nodded. “If you wanna do that.”

“I have savings.”

“Go for it,” Mayes agreed.

“And then, maybe the ointment? Like, I don’t know what’s going to be in there, but if one of us gets poisoned or something?”

“Yeah,” Icarus thought. “I think I can deal with poison stuff, but, in case I can’t, or in case I am the one that’s poisoned… yeah, we’ll take one of the ointments.”

“One of those?”

“Okay,” the employee smiled.

“I mean, surely, it’s a big jar,” Icarus shrugged. “We can just dip in.”

“How many uses is it?” Pandora asked. “Is it one use?”

“Two,” they explained.

“Two uses,” Icarus nodded.

“That’s good,” Pandora agreed.

“Sweet,” Mayes approved.

Pandora did a bit of math in her head. “Okay.”

“So that’s… 190 debt between us. That’s not bad.”

“Do you want the… cat dex potion thing?” Icarus asked.

“No, it’s too expensive.”

They took a greater and two lesser healing potions each, plus the ointment, and the instant comfort.

“Alright, Thank you so much for your help,” Icarus smiled.

“Ah, no problem,” the employee stared at the three of them with a sigh, looking dreamily between the three of them equally.

Pandora glanced at the love potion, but it didn’t seem to have been opened. The employee was simply a sucker for pretty faces.

“Thank you so much,” Pandora smiled.

“Alright, we gotta keep on going shopping,” Icarus agreed.

The employee smiled. “See you again.”

“Yeah, definitely see you again.” Icarus gave another smile and rounded on the others as soon as they left. “So that love potion was weird.”

“Yeah, I didn’t know that was a thing,” Pandora replied.

“That’s creepy,” Mayes grimaced.

“Well, we could take a look at the enchantment store? Or the armory?”

“Let’s go to the armory first,” Icarus reasoned. “Because then if we want anything enchanted, then we’ve already got…”

Mayes chuckled. “Sure.”

They headed over to Alyssa’s Arms. Walking inside, they saw Alyssa. She had very muscular arms. An absolutely tanked elf with dirty blonde hair cut very short, and a big, deep scar down one side of her face, she looked up with them with a slight sneer. She seemed irritated that customers would bother her, though it was nowhere near close to closing time.

“Hi!” Icarus greeted.

“Are you Alyssa?” Pandora asked.

The woman examined them. “Yeah.”

“We’re from Delphos, we’re here to buy some items,” Icarus explained.

“Oh, wonderful,” she deadpanned. “What can I get you?”

“What do you got?”

“Well,” she shrugged. “We’re a blacksmith. What do you want?”

“If you can improve my glaive, maybe?”

“Let me have a look at it.”

Icarus passed it over from where it was strapped to his back. The woman took it, picking it up and turning it around as she frowned. “Yeah, probably. Lookin’ at this thing.”

“Probably?”

“Do you have some whetstones?” Mayes asked.

She glanced over to them. “Yes, I can do whetstones. How many do you want?”

“Three.”

“That’ll be six copper.”

“Sure,” Mayes paid for them.

“How much would it be to improve my glaive?” Icarus continued. “It’s kind of old, so.”

Alyssa was growing increasingly annoyed. “Well, you want a reinforced handle? What, you want a new blade?”

“How much would a new blade set me back? Or a sharpened one?”

“I could just sharpen up this blade, it’d only be a couple of gold pieces, but it’s not gonna last that long. I mean, this thing is  _ old _ .”

“But it still, come on…”

“It’s old.”

“It’s like, what…” Icarus counted on his fingers for a moment. “Yeah, okay.”

“How old is it?” Pandora wondered.

But Alyssa plowed on, overlapping her. “A new blade entirely, maybe 10 gold. You do 15, I’ll throw in the reinforced handle.”

“Yeah,” Icarus relented. “Yeah, alright.”

“Leave it with me then. Unless you want anything else?”

“...Do you have better armour?”

Mayes glanced over. “Are we allowed to use different armour for the exam?”

“They told us to get prepared.”

“Sure. Do you have better armour?”

“I can do you some ringmail,” Alyssa shrugged. “Some scale mail.”

“Anything leather?”

Alyssa gave Mayes a bit of a look. “We’re a blacksmith.”

Mayes looked like they were about to argue the point, but Icarus continued on. “How much is the scale?”

“60 gold.”

“...In for a copper and all that, yeah.”

“Add it to your tab,” Mayes joked.

“Yeah, why not.”

“Okay…” Alyssa took out several different types of scale mail armour, some in the traditional hoplite style with the scale mail across the breast. It reminded him a bit of the gladiators, in the golden color.

“That's nice!”

“Well, you want to take a closer look? Want to try it on?”

“Yeah, I’ll try it on.”

She helped him into it, and she was not gentle. Pulling the different parts of the armour, she strapped him into it, slapping him on the back to make sure it was tight enough.

“Well, I mean, I’m not getting out of it, so… it’s mine!”

“Yeah, looks alright,” she approved. “Anyone else?”

Pandora shook her head.

“I can only wear leather,” Mayes shrugged.

Alyssa gave them another look before returning to Icarus. “You taking it?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s 60 then.”

He passed over the Delphos slip, and she rolled her eyes, letting out an audible sigh. “Okay…” she wrote something down in a book behind the counter before handing them back the slip. “You can tell Delphos that they need to come pay their last month’s bill.”

“Alright.”

“We’ll let them know,” Pandora assured her. “Thank you.”

Alyssa gave them a very insincere smile before ushering them out of the shop. Icarus took his glaive back from her before he left, “It’s okay….”

She rolled her eyes again.

They were racking up some debt, especially Icarus. He was aware, but he figured it was worth it.

“And, enchantments?” Pandora suggested. “Maybe they have some enchanted items we can use?”

“Yeah, perhaps,” Mayes agreed. “Probably expensive, but worth a look.”

“I might roll it back on the spending,” Icarus laughed.

“I feel like we should be prepared,” Pandora reasoned.

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “That’s your prerogative.”

“I know… but I just bought this,” he looked down at the armour he was strapped into, laughing.

“The school bought it.”

“The school bought  _ me _ .”

“Let’s have a look at the enchantments, why not.”

“Let’s,” Pandora nodded.

They headed into the enchantments store, and saw a hobgoblin man behind the counter with bright blonde hair, clearly somehow sun dried, probably using that neat trick with olive oil and basking in the sun for several hours. He looked quite a bit older, maybe in his fifties, leaning on the counter and chewing a piece of straw.

“Afternoon,” Mayes waved.

“Good afternoon,” Pandora followed.

The man glanced up. “Afternoon.”

He sucked the piece of straw into his mouth. Icarus and Pandora’s eyes went a bit wide, but Mayes refused to flinch.

Pandora blinked. “Oh… okay… We’re Delphos students, and we’ll be taking our final exam soon. Is there anything that you have that might be able to help us in the Labyrinth?”

He slid the straw back out the other side of his mouth. It was now a toothpick.

Icarus leaned forward, mouth agape for a moment until he pressed on. “...I’ve got a slip that says I buy what I want?”

The man nodded. “Okay. Well, what do you want to buy?”

“Uh… Do you have a toothpick or a straw in your mouth? I just,” he couldn’t help laughing, “I need to know.”

The man took the toothpick out of his mouth. It was now a daisy.

“It’s a magic stick!” Pandora realized.

“Exactly!” the man grinned, tucking it behind his ear.

“Okay, I don’t know how exactly a magic stick can help us, but um… something that could help us in the Labyrinth?”

“Oooh, the Labyrinth…”

“Like, we have no idea what’s going to be in there, but…”

“Do you have any recommendations?” Mayes wondered.

“Yeah, like past students?” Icarus pressed. “That have said things?”

“What sort of things do you have on offer?” Pandora continued.

“Any sales?” Mayes needled.

“We do love a sale,” Icarus smiled, the other two echoing.

“No sales,” the man grinned. “But… you can have… this coin,” he pulled a coin out of his pocket. “If you can guess which side it’s gonna land on.”

“Edge,” Icarus called.

“Heads,” Mayes followed.

The man shook his head. “See, that’s cheating if you all say different things…”

“It’s not cheating, there’s three of us,” Icarus reasoned.

Pandora was very in tune to looking for the slight shimmer of magic on items, and she could definitely see it on the coin. “Can I have a look at it? Before you throw it?”

“Sure,” he flicked it over to her.

It had a normal heads and tails. She couldn’t tell what kind of spell there was on it, but there was definitely something.

“Listen, there’s three of us,” Mayes pressed. “We can each pick something different, and it goes to the winner. If you’re keen to give it away.”

“Fine,” the hobgoblin relented.

“Heads.”

“Edge,” Icarus repeated.

Pandora handed the coin back. “Tails.”

Icarus smacked a hand on his face. “Why’d I pick the edge,” he chuckled.

The hobgoblin flicked the coin. It landed on the edge, very gently balanced on the corner of the counter, as if it was about to roll off, but didn’t.

“That’s cool,” Pandora nodded. “Looks like you win.”

“Coin is yours,” the employee agreed.

“Thanks,” the triton took it.

“What does it do?” Pandora wondered. “Apart from… decide between two people in an argument?”

“That, you’ll have to find out for yourself,” the shopkeep replied.

“Cryptic, creepy,” Mayes approved.

Icarus flicked the coin into the air, catching it. It felt like a regular coin.

“So what are you after?” the man continued. “Spell scrolls? You after enchanted gadgets?”

“Gadgets are cool.” Mayes considered.

“All of those, gadgets and spells,” Pandora followed. “Spell scrolls, spell scrolls especially.”

The man looked between them, checking the school badges on their chests before pointing at Mayes. “You.”

“Me?”

“You’re gonna like this.”

“Okay?”

They dug around in their stuff, darting around the shop and going through some different drawers, disappearing into the back for a minute before coming out. “Aha!”

They were holding a set of thieves' tools.

“I… have those,” Mayes replied.

The man looked a bit indignant. “I absolutely don’t believe for a second that you do.”

Mayes took out their thieves’ tools.

“Oh, those are boring ones,” the man dismissed.

“What’s the difference?”

“What’s so special about those ones?” Pandora wondered.

The man raised the new pair into the air. “You don’t like… enchanted ones?”

“What’s the difference?” Mayes repeated.

“Are they for enchanted locks?” Pandora guessed.

The man held them over the counter. “They never break.”

Mayes was interested. “How much?”

“60 gold.”

“Sure.”

He slid them over. “And… they are _ trap tools _ , to anyone who asks. Enchanted trap tools.”

“Okay.”

The man considered his wares. “You want… an entire flask of fire?”

“Interesting,” Pandora considered.

“You look like you like fire.”

“I like fire.”

He pulled out a rather grotty looking old flask, with a net around it, and a cork in the top. It looked like it had been burned on the outside, but the cork seemed perfectly intact. “Alchemist’s fire.”

“Okay…” Alchemist’s fire was an adhesive fluid that exploded when exposed to air. Taking the cork out was very dangerous, but one could throw it to smash the bottle, and it would explore as it landed. “Can you control where it lands?”

“About as well as you can throw.”

“Okay. How much?”

“That is gonna set you back… Hm. It would be 50, but you’re Delphos students, you played my coin trick… 35.”

“I’ll think about it. What scrolls do you have?”

“Well, the best one I think I can give you, we have Silent Image. You know that spell?”

She did. With it, one could create an image or object as an illusion, though purely visible.

“Or,” he continued, “Slightly more expensive but possibly more useful to you… Have you ever wanted to See Invisibility?”

“That could be useful…”

“That’d definitely be very useful,” Icarus agreed.

“That might be useful.”

“These are rare,” the man explained. “I sell a lot of spell scrolls, being this close to the Academy, but… the choices are there.”

“How much would the See Invisibility…?”

“120. That’s at a discount.”

“That’s at discount… Okay. I’m gonna be working this off for a while,” she lamented.

“Same,” Icarus grinned. “It’s worth it.”

“You know what, for this, this is very important. Yes, I will take See Invisibility, please..”

“Okay,” he slid the scroll over to her. “You’ve got your slip, I imagine?”

“Yeah,” Icarus held up the paper. 

He signed it all down. “Okay. That, I imagine, is probably everything I have of use to you. Unless…”

“Unless?” they chorused.

The man disappeared behind the counter again, digging around in the box. With the rummaging noises, it almost sounded like there was an animal down there. He came back up, holding what looked like a single pellet.

“Do tell,” Mayes prompted.

Icarus leaned forward on the counter. “What is it?”

The man grinned. “Dust.”

Icarus leaned back.

Pandora seemed confused. “Okay…?”

“Except,” they continued, “You can drop this dust into water. And all the water will disappear inside the pellet.”

Icarus leaned forward again. “Why?”

“Why indeed. Because you can then release the water anywhere you want to.”

“Okay! That’s what I needed,” he chuckled. “Okay…”

“”How much?” Pandora asked.

“100 gold. I don’t know what you’re facing, but if you’re facing a water elemental…”

“We don’t know what we’re facing either.”

Icarus’s eyes went wide. “Could we throw it into a water elemental? Would that work?”

“They are water,” Mayes reasoned.

“Now that’s interesting.”

“100 is at a big discount for this,” the man explained.

Icarus squinted at the man, trying to gauge whether he was being truthful. He seemed reasonably trustworthy.

“What do you think?” Pandora asked the others.

“I think it could definitely be useful… but we don’t know what’s gonna be in there, and we don’t have to return the items after the first task,” Icarus reasoned.

“I guess not… And then if we don’t use it, we can just return it?”

“That’s true,” Mayes considered.

“Or just keep it for the next one,” Icarus countered.

“There are three. Gotta be ready.”

“It could be anything,” Pandora relented.

“Yeah, why not,” Icarus sighed.

“We can always bring it back if we don’t use it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“So you’ll take that for 100?” the man prompted.

“I mean… 80.”

The man raised a brow at Icarus. “It’s already at a big discount. 95.”

“...I think you can do better at 85?” Icarus pleaded.

“...85 it is.”

“Great,” he smiled.

The man seemed very impressed with him. “Enjoy the coin.”

“I will! Thanks.”

“Okay, amazing,” Pandora smiled as they left the shop.

“Sweet,” Mayes agreed. “I guess we just focus on practicing until we get called upon for the exam.”

They stopped once more at the general store, and Pandora picked up a waterproof case for her spellbook for two gold, along with some silk rope for another ten gold.

They came back to the school with their shopping bags, Icarus’s new scale mail jingling as they walked. As they came in through the front, they saw Johan on a crutch.

“Johan!” Pandora called.

“How you doing?” Icarus worried.

Mayes offered an apologetic smile. “Oh, buddy…”

“Yeah, I’m, I’m okay,” he replied.

“It’s good to see you up and about man,” Icarus smiled.

“Yeah, don’t know if I should be, but.”

“No.”

“You should be resting,” Pandora advised.

“It’s okay,” he shrugged. “I’m getting sick of the inside of my room.”

“We missed you yesterday,” Icarus offered. “Did really good at the beginning of the fight, you know? It was just an unlucky blow. You’ll do better next time, yeah?”

Johan frowned. “I’ll have to.”

“Is Kyria okay?” Pandora asked.

“Yeah, yeah. She’ll be fine. We’re okay. And look at the three of you, I heard about your final exams!”

“Yeah!” Pandora and Icarus smiled.

Mayes grinned. “Exciting.”

“Sorry they ditched you out there,” Johan continued.

“Ah, don’t be,” Icarus assured him. “It was more important for you to get back to safety.”

“Exactly,” Pandora agreed.

“Yeah, but if I had been on my feet, I would have stayed,” Johan countered.

“But,” Icarus assured him, “It was just one mistake. And you’re gonna learn from that, and do better next time.”

“Yeah…”

“You’re a good fighter, okay?”

“Thanks. Means a lot, from you.”

“For what it’s worth, you’re great to have on a team,” Pandora added.

“Aw, thanks.”

“For sure,” Mayes nodded.

“Well, I’d say I hope to work with you again, but. Probably won’t be if you pass. Which you will.”

“You may well do,” Pandora countered.

“We got a lot of debt now,” Icarus laughed.

“We’ll be here awhile, I’m sure.”

“Gotta do some contracts,” Mayes chuckled.

“Okay. Well, good luck,” Johan replied.

“Thanks,” Icarus smiled.

“Thank you,” Pandora followed. “And feel better.”

“Oh, and just watch out for Alexis,” Johan warned them. “He’s mumbling around, out for your blood.”

“Oh, who cares,” Mayes dismissed. “We beat him up last night.”

“Don’t say that too loud,” Icarus sighed. “We didn’t beat him up. He tried to start something, but...”

“He let himself get beaten up.”

“Well, just watch out,” Johan repeated. “He’s on a bit of a rampage.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Icarus shrugged.

“He’s got half of Imperitoria turned against you.”

“What!” Pandora gasped.

“Nothing new there,” Icarus grinned.

Johan chuckled. “I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah.”

“Feel better,” Pandora repeated.

“See you around,” Mayes gave a little salute.

“Catch you later,” Icarus followed. “Let us know if you need anything, okay?”

Johan nodded and shuffled off. He was smiling, but clearly quite badly injured.

  
  


Mayes left to do some painting and work on their cypher while Pandora went off to learn her new spell. She was pretty sure she had learned it after an hour, but she couldn’t test it out, as she didn’t have anything invisible with her. Instead, she found another Medeis student, and asked them to make something invisible for her to look at.

Icarus jogged, doing laps around the training ring to get out some excess energy and stress, running until his legs were begging for him to stop. It was fairly late into the evening before his body was too exhausted to let him continue. He crawled back to his room, dripping with sweat. He went to the big open bathhouse first, trying not to fall asleep in the water. There were always a handful of other students in there. The fins on his arms and legs puffed out in the water, the gills on his ribcage bubbling.

They headed up to their rooms, and managed to sleep easily, with no strange dreams.

  
  


At 4:45 in the morning, there was a loud knock on their doors. Their mentors were standing outside.

Icarus got up, and Lorakai was waiting.

“You’re never up this early!” Icarus grinned. “Look at you!”

Lorakai laughed. “It’s time.”

“Oh Gods…”

He dropped something he had been holding in his hand, and Icarus was shrouded in darkness.

The same happened to the others, though their mentors were slightly more respectful and kind about it. Pandora had gasped upon seeing Alexander, wrapping her robe around herself. “Hi?”

“Morning.”

“It’s very early morning…”

“You might want to get dressed.”

“Is it time?”

“Quickly,” Alexander warned.

“Okay, oh Gods, okay!”

“I’m not supposed to give you time, hurry up!”

She dressed quickly, gathering her stuff together.

Citra didn’t give Mayes a hot second. Citra knocked quickly before opening the lock herself, not waiting for them to answer the door. Mayes gave a little salute, “Hey.”

“Morning.”

Mayes was shrouded in darkness.

They felt their arm grabbed, and they were each shuffled out of their dormitories. They felt themselves moving through the familiar corridors, recognizing the feel of the floor beneath them.

“This is pleasant,” Icarus joked. He teased the shit out of his mentor the whole way.

“Shut up,” Lorakai chuckled.

The steps came next, and they were carefully guided down with their mentor’s arms on theirs.

Mayes made comments about where they thought they were based on how the ground felt the entire way.

“Shut up,” Citra chided.

“Am I right though?”

Pandora was trying to be calm, but barely containing herself. She was nicely guided into a carriage along with Mayes.

Icarus was shoved inside, the doors slamming shut behind him.

“Your bedside manner is immaculate!” he yelled into the dark.

“I’m still in here,” Lorakai replied, the voice much closer than he expected.

“Oh.”

“Hey guys,” Mayes called.

“Oh, hey!”

“Hi,” Pandora followed. Puck was asleep under his wing on her shoulder.

“Can we have quiet, please?” Lorakai waved a hand at them, though they couldn’t see. “It’s a quarter to five in the morning.”

“It is.”

“That was your choice,” Mayes countered.

“...No, it wasn’t,” Lorakai admitted. He whacked Mayes on the leg with his cane, and Mayes let out an indignant yelp.

“Lorakai has got no idea there’s more than two, er, more than one 5:00am. Or, 5:00…” Icarus shook his head, stumbling over his attempts to tease his mentor. “I’m tired.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Lorakai doesn’t even know there’s more than one 8:00.”

“Be nice to me, I’m right here. And you can’t see, and I can,” Lorakai grinned. “A little bit,” he amended, adjusting his eyepatch.

The three students chuckled. They felt the carriage pull off through the streets of Erran, and they travelled for quite a while in the darkness. They recognized the flagstone under the wheels of the carriage turning into the bumpier dirt roads outside of Erran, but from there, they had no perception whatsoever of where the carriage was taking them, travelling for close to two hours.

Icarus simply went to sleep again. Pandora was dressed, but the other two were still in their pajamas.

Towards the end of the journey, the carriage pulled slowly down a steep hill. When the darkness was dropped, they found themselves inside a dark cavern. It wasn’t completely different from the one in their dream, but it was not the same. At the end, they saw sandy stone steps going up into a carved archway with two marble columns, and two braziers lit on either side, throwing an orange light over everything. Their mentors helped them out of the carriage, and gave them their clothing and the possessions they had just purchased.

Alexander led the charge on instructing them as the other two stood to the side. “Welcome to the Labyrinth.”

“Thanks,” Icarus grinned.

“Through that archway, you will find one of the toughest tasks you’ve ever faced at Delphos Academy. You have been told already that you need to seek six principles. To reach them, you need three keys, you need three clues, and a cypher. There is no time limit on this, but be aware that you’re under observation for everything that you do. If at any point one of you can’t cut this, you simply state it. You will be retrieved, and the others will carry on without you. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Of course,” Mayes followed.

Alexander put a gold band bracelet around each of their wrists. “With these, we’ll be able to track you, and see what you’re doing. And also be able to make sure that you’re safe, so don’t worry about that. We wish you the best of luck. We’ll see you on the other side of the Labyrinth.”

“Thank you,” Pandora smiled.

“Thanks,” Icarus grinned.

Each mentor said a final word to them individually, wishing them good luck before gesturing them towards the stone steps heading into the maze. They approached, and the cavern behind them seemed to fall into the same darkness. Ahead of them, just the two braziers, and inside, a mosaic floor in a large room.

Beyond that, the first walls of a maze.

  
  



	3. Enter the Labyrinth, Episode Three

They got dressed, picking up the stuff thrown down at their feet as Pandora waved a protection spell around herself.

Icarus placed a hand on both of them, sending a bit of his own magic through his allies. “We got this, don’t worry.”

“Of course,” Mayes nodded.

“Oh!” Pandora smiled. “I feel invigorated.”

“Thanks Icarus.”

“No worries,” he grinned.

They climbed the short flight of steps up towards the labyrinth. The pronaos chamber of the labyrinth was a 50x25 foot vestibule, lit by two torches on the wall across from them. In the center of the room were four stone columns, and a mosaic on the floor of a minotaur. Minotaur statues flanked the room on each of the four corners. There were closed doors to their left and right, and ahead of them, an archway leading to what they recognized immediately as the slim corridors of a maze.

As they took a few steps forward, they felt a large panel on the floor depress beneath their feet. The two statues behind them, flanking the entrance into the labyrinth, exploded with flames between them, blocking their exit. The two ahead of them did the same, blocking the entrance to the maze itself.

Pandora blinked. “Okay…”

The room around them was built with sandy stone, as was much of Erran, though this looked much older. Crumbling in places with wicked vines growing out of cracks, the floor was tiled, with a thick layer of dust on top of it. They could see many footprints of previous students that had come through.

“I get the feeling we’re supposed to stay in this room,” Icarus grinned.

“Somehow, no,” Pandora replied.

“I can probably try and douse it, but I have a feeling that that wouldn’t work for very long.”

“Probably not.”

Around the pillars, they saw carvings that depicted men with spears, trying to fend off a mighty stone bull with six horns standing on two legs, about three times the size of the men depicted in the images. The carvings had been worn thin with time. Around their feet, they noticed a number of scorpions scurrying about with their stingers raised.

“Really into the minotaur thing, right?” Icarus joked.

“I suppose so,” Pandora frowned.

Apart from the floor tile they stepped on as they entered, they found nothing else in the first space that could be maneuvered or depressed to turn the flames off. The first panel wouldn’t raise back up again.

“So, we’ve gotta try and get through into the labyrinth,” Icarus summarized. “So, let’s try door number one? You know? We got two doors to either side…”

“Yeah, why not,” Mayes agreed. “Perhaps we need to gather some stuff from both of them.”

“Maybe,” Pandora considered.

“I mean, it’s a test, so,” Icarus shrugged. “Try the left?”

“Okay.”

“Sure thing,” Mayes seconded.

They headed to the left side, reaching the locked door. Mayes kneeled down, taking out their lockpick set. In a number of moments, they managed to fiddle with the old, rusty lock on the door, and get it to spring open. The wooden creaking door swung open slowly, and they saw a dark room with no lights.

“Easy enough with the right tools,” Mayes stood.

“Wow. That’s awesome, well done,” Icarus grinned.

“Thanks.”

“Couldn’t have gone in there without you. Uh, can anyone see in there?”

“I can,” Pandora offered.

Ahead, Pandora saw a room full of sarcophagi. Most of them were eight feet in length, stone sarcophagi with bull headed men carved onto the top. “It’s full of sarcophagi,” she reported.

“Uh, that’s not friendly, huh?” Icarus chuckled.

“I don’t know…” she tentatively entered the room. As she did, she saw the room extended much further to the left than to the right. A few of the sarcophagi had been pried open, while a few were nailed shut.

Icarus pulled a torch from their bag, going to the fire shooting out of the wall to light it. It ignited easily. It was his only torch, but it would last for at least an hour. Bright light shining around him, he followed Pandora inside as Mayes came up from behind.

As they entered, all of them were sure they heard some movement from inside the sarcophagi that were nailed shut.

“That’s… yeah, that’s not friendly at all,” Mayes frowned.

“Let’s go quietly then,” Pandora advised.

“Yeah. Do you want me to go up front?” Icarus offered.

There was a small tunnel, about five feet across, leading off ahead of them through that room. Icarus slapped his hands together, giving himself another magical boost before searching the room. When he was confident there was nothing on the floor there, he moved to the tunnel, sliding through the small passageway into what looked like a very small research space, with a couple of desks, and some old books on the shelf. There was one open on one of the desks. He was unable to read the language, but there was a diagram that demonstrated the construction of a guarding creature. “Can anyone read this?”

Pandora crouched down to follow. “Let’s have a look.”

They could all just about fit in. Looking down at it, Pandora recognized similar shapes to the language of Infernal, but she couldn’t read it. “It looks a little bit like Infernal, but it isn’t.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s not gonna bode well,” Icarus chuckled.

“Well, I suppose if we hang onto it? Maybe it’s a clue?”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

“Exactly,” Mayes agreed. “We’re looking for a cypher, so something that needs to be translated makes sense.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

They didn’t find anything else in the desks or on the shelves, and a lot of the books were old, tattered, and written in a language they didn’t understand. Many of them had faded away to the point where the pages just crumbled in their hands. But, they noticed the smell of incense in the top corner of the room. Moving one of the desks, a small tunnel that had been bored through the wall was revealed. The smell of incense was seeping through it, with a small amount of smoke from the other side.

“There’s a tunnel here,” Pandora pointed out.

“So we can get further in without going through the flames, perhaps,” Mayes thought.

“Potentially.”

“Good find,” Icarus grinned.

“I mean, we should see what’s on the other side.”

“I agree,” Mayes nodded.

“Or, if there’s anything else in the room with the sarcophagi?”

Mayes returned to the previous room to search around a bit more. They found a couple of silver coins on the floor, but other than that, nothing else. Taking a closer look at the silver coins, they noted that one side had the same effigy of a six horned bull. It didn’t look like any coin they had seen in Erran or Vishima. They kept a hold of a few, just in case they would be important later.

Icarus looked at the tunnel. It was a crawlspace, and someone would have to crawl on their hands and knees to get through, but it would fit an average sized person. “Who wants to go first?”

“Should we take a look on the other side?” Pandora wondered.

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “I thought we were checking out the other side first, just in case.”

Icarus followed the others out. “Okay, sure. Let’s do that, good idea.”

Leaving the tunnel, they made their way to the door on the other side of the first room. The door was also locked. Mayes set about picking it as Icarus offered a bit more supportive magic, and the lock clicked open as easily as the first. Inside, from the light shed by the torch and Pandora’s dark vision, they could immediately see a ravished storeroom. There were empty barrels, and the musty smell of centuries old rotten supplies, and another pungent rotting smell that didn’t quite smell like food. There were two more sarcophagi in there, with their lids on, though not nailed shut. They could see that the walls were unstable, with long thin fissure cracks through them, and the ceiling looked like it could collapse from as little as a raised voice.

“Well, this doesn’t look safe,” Icarus worried.

“No it doesn’t, does it,” Pandora replied, nervous.

“Hold still for a second,” Mayes warned. “I just want to check something out.”

“Sure,” Icarus nodded, giving them another tap of his assistive magic.

Mayes stealthily crept over to the pair of sarcophagi. Mayes’ feet padded softly over the dirt floor, disturbing nothing as they crept up and put their ear down to one. They heard a slight clicking mechanical sound, and listening for a moment, it didn’t stop. From the other, they heard nothing. “This one’s got a mechanism in it,” they reported in a hushed tone.

“Do you want me to see if it’s a trap?” Icarus whispered back.

“Yeah, if you want to. Or I can try and figure it out, I could always disarm it.”

“Yeah, why not. Is there anything else in there?”

“That one’s quiet,” they gestured to the other.

“Can you just knock on the one that is quiet?” Pandora asked.

Mayes gave an unsure look over towards the silent one. “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea or not.”

“I’m just wondering if there’s something in there that we need to find.”

“We do need to look for things,” Icarus agreed.

Mayes hesitated for another moment before giving the quiet box a knock. An ear-splitting scream erupted out of the sarcophagus.

While the other two were able to tough it out, Pandora dropped immediately unconscious. As she crumpled to the ground in a heap as the scream shook the room, parts of the ceiling began to fracture and split off. The lid of the sarcophagus shook and they saw cracks begin to appear in the stone.

Icarus grabbed Pandora and started moving back into the main room as Mayes followed, shutting the door behind and locking it with their tools.

Icarus sent out a healing spell, and Pandora awoke, feeling momentarily dizzy. “What was that?”

“It was something awful,” Mayes replied.

Icarus steadied her. “Hey, Sunspot. You gave us a bit of a fright there.”

“Sorry!” she groaned.

“That’s alright! We got you, okay?”

“Oh, I thought there was going to be something useful,” she sighed.

“I… hate to be the one to say it, but I feel like the mechanical box might be something useful,” Icarus frowned.

“Yup,” Mayes frowned back. “...I can go back in.”

“As long as you’re sure.”

“Yep.”

“...Okay.”

Mayes unlocked the door again, Icarus offering out a bit of magical guidance once more as they entered. Bits of the ceiling were still splintering down, with larger cracks appearing in the stone above, but no piece of stone had dropped yet. Thinking back on their school training, they tried to determine if the ticking sound was familiar. Very cautiously, they edged the sarcophagus open to peek inside.

They very gently pushed the lid off, and inside, there was a lever.

They sighed.

“What is it?” Icarus called.

“A lever. Do you think it’s maybe for the flames?”

“...I think it’s probably for the flames.”

Mayes pulled the level. It clicked into place easily, and the flames on the labyrinth side shut off instantly.

Pandora groaned.

“Hey, at least we know,” Icarus consoled her. “We found that.”

“Eventually,” she replied. “Well done Mayes.”

“It’s fine,” they shrugged. “Let’s just not go knocking on coffins again.”

“Yeah, let’s not,” Icarus chuckled. “So, we gonna go through the main entrance? Or do you want to go through that tunnel that we found, and just check that out?”

“Let’s try the main entrance first,” Pandora decided. “And then, at least, we know we have that to come back to.”

“Okay, sure. We got you covered, don’t worry.”

“I’m so frustrated with myself.”

“Hey, it caught all of us by surprise, okay?”

“Exactly,” Mayes agreed. “It’s fine.”

They stepped up to the archway to enter the labyrinth. They were immediately faced with a tunnel that went either left or right. The walls were tall, made of sandstone, with vines creeping over them, each about 25 feet high. The ceiling above them looked to be maybe 50 or 60 feet high. It was very dark, but Pandora noticed that the braziers on either side of the wall could come off. She took one down, handing it to Mayes before taking the other for herself.

“So, we going in, or should we try that door before we get lost in there?” Icarus wondered.

“I feel like we should leave a trail for ourselves,” Pandora suggested.

“Okay. That’s a great idea, what do you suggest?”

“Let’s see what I have…”

“Oh, I’ve got my paints with me,” Mayes offered.

“That’s a good idea.”

“I can… paint arrows?”

“Paint arrows on the floor,” Icarus nodded.

“From the way that we’ve already gone.”

“Yeah,” Pandora approved.

“Yeah, why not.”

“Great,” Icarus smiled. “That’s fantastic.”

They could hear movement further into the maze, what sounded like slow and steady footsteps, but it appeared to be coming from ahead of them rather than to the left or right.

“Let’s just go right,” Mayes decided. “Why not.”

“Okay,” Pandora nodded.

“Sure,” Icarus followed.

Mayes painted a little arrow to the right, and they headed down the right passage. It curved around and back up again, and as they moved around the maze, they could see that it started to split off further ahead. “So… let’s not split up in here, okay?”

“No,” Pandora agreed.

“Oh no,” Icarus followed. “Definitely not.”

Mayes nodded. “Good.”

They felt along the walls, looking down at the floor at their feet. There were more simple tiles, each of them about 5x5 across, but with many tracks and footprints from before with no way to tell how old they were in the dust. They didn’t see any signs of traps, and they approached another split in the road that went immediately to their right, with a T junction about five feet ahead of it.

Mayes turned to the others. “I picked last time.”

“Which way, Pandora?” Icarus asked.

“Right,” she answered.

“Right it is again,” Mayes agreed, making a paint mark.

The halls were only five feet across. Mayes continued at the front while Icarus brought up the rear, with Pandora in the middle. They proceeded ahead around the corners for a bit before reaching a dead end. They headed back, marking on the floor where they were going with the paint. Eventually, they came to one of the far corners of the maze. Standing there, shiny and not at all dusty as everything else they had come across so far, was a foot tall golden idol, shaped like a cyclops. In its single eye was a large, red crystal.

“So,” Mayes gestured. “That’s something. But if we move it… does something activate?”

They looked for a platform, but the statue seemed to be placed on the dirt, over the tiles.

“So it’s not dusty… I feel like we need to take the eye?” Icarus suggested. “If we need to take any of it. Can you check for traps?”

Mayes gave a nod, and Icarus gave them a pat on the back that sent yet another small bit of guiding magic into the student. Mayes could see that the statue appeared to be fixed to the floor, but they didn’t see any little holes around it in the wall or any depressed tiles, or anything on the ceiling that suggested it was a trap.

Mayes took the eye.

Upon touching it, they realized they couldn’t move it. Additionally, they felt a shimmer of something wash over their entire body. Nothing else seemed to change for a moment, and then they realized that the light from the torches was beginning to hurt their eyes. Mayes took their hand off it. The pain in their eyes remained.

“...Can you… turn those down, at all? It’s really bright.”

“What?” Icarus glanced over.

Pandora put her light down to the floor.

The dimmer the light, the more the pain lessened.

“Are you okay?” Icarus worried.

Mayes sighed. “Great.”

“What?”

“Light hurts my eyes.”

“That’s useful,” Pandora frowned.

“Bad eye feel. Thanks, cyclops.”

Pandora took a piece of parchment from her bag, going to grab the crystal without using her bare hand. She was able to pluck the crystal out of the gold idol, leaving the eye socket. She wrapped the crystal in the parchment, but the feeling Mayes had didn’t stop. Pandora eyed them for a moment. There was definitely something arcane affecting Mayes, but she had no idea what it was.

“Are you okay?” Icarus asked.

Mayes stretched, rolling their muscles. “I mean, between this and my shoulders aching, not great, but.”

“Your shoulders are aching?” Pandora worried.

“Eh, they do sometimes.”

“You didn’t sleep well last night?” Icarus guessed.

“No, I slept fine. I just get weird aches and pains every now and then. It’s just one of those things.”

“Huh. Typical it’s on a day you need them.”

“Of course.”

“We’ll keep our lights low and away from your eyes okay, but let us know if it gets worse.”

“I mean, I can’t see in the dark, so I’ll just… squint.”

“Do you want me to…?”

“You can hold on to my tail,” Pandora offered.

Mayes considered for a moment, and then declined. “No, I need to be up front, checking for stuff. It’s fine.”

“You can’t really check the stuff,” Icarus reasoned. “If you can’t- ”

“It’s fine, Icarus. I’ll just keep going.”

“Okay. We gotta be more careful, then.”

“Sure.”

Behind them, they could see a length of pathway leading further up, with a door leading off an archway.

“Oh, a door,” Icarus pointed.

“We should try it, I think,” Pandora thought.

“Of course,” Mayes agreed.

“Okay, let’s head towards the door,” Icarus decided.

“Nice change to seeing all the walls for a while,” Mayes replied.

“We only just started,” Icarus chuckled. “We’ll be fine.”

They approached the little room. There was no physical door, just a doorway. Glancing inside, they saw a set of animal horns on a table against the back wall. The closer they moved towards it, the hotter they felt.

“It’s warm in here,” Pandora commented.

“Ugh, yeah,” Icarus grimaced. “I don’t like that.”

Pandora held her hand closer to the horns, and it felt like the heat was expelling directly from them. As she brought her hand closer, it felt like her palm was starting to burn. But then, she had small flashes of imagery in her head. She saw two giant minotaur statues, one of them holding a sword and the other holding a gold coin. She saw a ceiling collapsing down towards a box, and an altar laid out with a key on top of it. “I think… I just saw other parts of the maze. There were two minotaur statues, one had a sword and one had a coin, uh, there was another room like this with the ceiling falling in onto a box, and then… there was another room with an altar, and an iron key on it.”

Her hand started to feel like it was burning up. When she brought her palm back, it was blackened. “Oh…. that’s weird.”

“Is your hand okay?” Mayes asked.

“I think so. It burns a bit, but it’s okay. Fire doesn’t usually affect me too much.”

“Good to know.”

The triton grimaced. “That’s not the room for me, then.”

Aside from the horns, there were a few pots and scattered pieces of broken pottery on the floor, with a couple of old pieces of scrolls, but nothing else in there seemed significant, and everything written was in the same language none of them could read.

“I guess we wander back and take some passages we haven’t tried yet?” Mayes suggested.

“Yeah. Should we keep going further up?” Icarus wondered. “So we are taken out of here? Or head back on ourselves?”

“It’s your turn to choose.”

“Let’s try and do as much on this side as we can before we move on,” Pandora advised.

“That’s a good shout,” Icarus nodded. “We’ll go up, then.”

They headed up the passage. Mayes had insisted on staying at the front. They wandered around the passages for a while, finding several dead ends, before they found themselves back at the room with the horn.

“Hm,” Icarus frowned. “So either there’s no way up further this way, or… we need to try again.”

“We need to try again,” Mayes repeated. They had seen a few of the paint marks as they had wandered. It seemed they had gotten turned around, not as if the maze had shifted around them. “We just need to try different passageways.”

“Okay,” Pandora agreed.

“You fine still being up front Mayes?” Icarus checked.

They sighed. “I’m frustrated, is all.”

“I know. Do you want me to lead for a bit?”

“Hm. Pandora can see the furthest. She should.”

“Okay,” Pandora agreed.

They attempted the same direction again, taking a few different paths this time. Moving up the passageways with Pandora at the front, they felt more confident, and took a different turn.

Pandora stepped onto a square in front of them and vanished.

Mayes and Icarus looked at the space in front of them where Pandora was instantly gone.

“ _ Shit _ ,” Mayes swore.

“Pandora?” Icarus called.

“Oh Gods…”

“Pandora!”

  
  


Pandora found herself in another part of the maze. She could hear the vague sound of her teammates yelling, but she felt a shimmer of magic around her feet as she landed in a different part of the maze. Looking down at the ground, she couldn’t see anything. She could only feel the sensation of magic being cast that she knew so well.

But ahead of her, in a corner, there was another golden idol on the floor. This one was of a hippocampus. She moved up to inspect it for traps, searching animatedly all over. She found nothing, save that it seemed to be attached to the floor like the other. However, there didn’t seem to be anything to take this time. She definitely sensed magic coming off it, but it didn’t have a threatening aura.

She reached forward to touch it, and she felt rejuvenated, as if the statue was imbued with some kind of healing magic. Taking her hand off, she touched it again. The same sensation occurred, and she felt even better. Excited, she touched it a third time, but the statue seemed to be done for now.

  
  


In the other part of the maze, the other two students were stunned. Mayes was starting to get a bit panicked, though they were quiet about it.

“Pandora!” Icarus shouted again.

She could just hear them. Sending a message spell, she sent her voice into Icarus’s head.  _ “It’s okay, I’m alright! I found another idol.” _

_ “Okay, glad to hear your voice. We need to try and meet up again.” _

_ “Yeah.” _

“Unless we can just step on this and also get sent there,” Mayes countered as Icarus passed along the reply.

“I mean, there’s no guarantee that’s what will happen,” Icarus reasoned.

“True, we could just go somewhere else random. Let’s step over it, and make our way from there.”

“Over it, yeah.”

Icarus hopped over the square, doing a squat as he landed on the other side. Mayes put a hand on the wall as they hopped around, and they made a mark on the floor to signify the trap.

  
  


Pandora regarded the idol. The hippocampus was the symbol of the House Anterus. “Guess it makes sense, for healing.”

Turning around, she decided to step on the square she had appeared on. Once again, she was transported to a different room. She found herself in yet another random location, with a turn ahead of her, and a turn in the other direction leading to a larger chamber. The ceiling was only about 10 feet high, whereas it was almost 60 feet high before.

There was a bit of dust, and a few pebbles covering the tiles. Pandora drew a circle in the dust around the trapped tile to mark it. “So it’s random each time, okay…”

She moved forward to take a peek in the big chamber. Entering, she found that it had a ceiling with four walls, while the rest of the labyrinth had high walls and a completely separate ceiling. It was a stone room, with something carved onto the floor in front of her in Ancient Errani. It appeared to be the word “naos”, which she translated to mean “nest.”

In the center of the room, there was a plinth. It was about twenty feet tall, with a stone chest on top of it. There were four flame lit torches on each wall, and writing on the bottom of the plinth, but she would have to get closer to read it.

She looked around the room to make sure it was safe before entering further. There didn’t appear to be anything on the walls that was going to cause her any harm, and she didn’t see any indications of creatures or holes that signified a trap. Looking up, she could tell that the ceiling was a separate piece of stone to the walls.

She thought back on the vision she had of the ceiling collapsing. It looked like the same ceiling. “Maybe not in here on my own just yet…”

She backed out, jumping over the trapped teleportation tile. She took the stone she had used to mark the trapped tile in her tail, drawing a line on the floor as she walked in the dirt.

  
  


Icarus eyed the walls. 25 feet up, with passageways 5 feet across. He started planning, picturing himself with his sandals on one wall and his shoulders on the other, climbing up the stone. “This might not work,” he warned Mayes. “But I want to see if I can get an aerial view.”

Mayes leaned back and crossed their arms. “Okay, I want to see this.”

To his credit, he made it about ten feet up before he lost his footing and slid back down, scraping his back painfully. “Agh…!”

“Don’t try that again.”

“I mean, I got halfway.”

“Let’s try and find Pandora first.”

“That’s what I was trying to do!”

Mayes shook their head, grinning. “Come on, Icarus.”

“I could give you a boost?”

“Please don’t.”

“Alright…”

Icarus took the lead, and the pair headed straight back down the tunnels before finding themselves at another T junction. On their left, writing was carved into the wall of the labyrinth. This time, it was written in Common. They read, plainly, with nothing else around it,  _ “If it’s answers you seek, then gold I shall take.” _

But there was nothing to give any gold to.

“Huh. Riddles, hm?” Mayes gestured.

“Yeah.”

“But nowhere to put any gold.”

“Answers you seek, gold I shall take…” Icarus trailed off, thinking for a few seconds. “Could maybe just press a gold coin against it?”

Mayes took out a coin and tried that. Nothing happened.

“Aw. It was worth a try,” Icarus shrugged.

“Perhaps it refers to something else. Perhaps it’s just a clue for something else?”

“We do need three clues!”

“We do need three clues…”

“Okay, so that might be a clue. Especially since it’s in Common, most people can read that, everyone can read that. So, okay! That’s great!”

“It’s a start. And I did find those weird silver coins, so maybe there are gold ones somewhere?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Who knows.

“If there’s answers you seek, then it’s gold I shall take,” Icarus repeated.

“We should perhaps keep moving. We’re still… Pandora!” they called.

  
  


Pandora could faintly hear them, and she messaged them again.  _ “We need to meet back up, but I’m not sure how. At least I can still hear you, so you’re not too far away.” _

_ “We could just sing, and meet up in the middle,” _ Icarus returned.

_ “Maybe not too much, so we don’t disturb anything in here?” _

_ “I know, I’m just kidding. Okay, we will figure this out. Let’s just keep moving, all we can do is keep moving.” _

Pandora wanted to move towards their voices, but the sound was coming from the opposite side of the room she had decided not to go into. Considering, and a bit distressed, she had another look. She could see seven exits from where she was, apart from the one she was standing in. it sounded as if the others were straight across from her, through the exit directly at the bottom.

She very carefully entered, approaching the writing at the bottom of the plinth. A sentence was written there in Common,  _ “Extinguish the light to bring me to life.” _

“Extinguish the light to bring me to life… Who is  _ me _ ?” She checked around, and saw that the phrase was written on both sides of the plinth. “Well, I’m guessing it has something to do with the flames in the corners. So I won’t extinguish them just yet.”

She very carefully skirted around the room, hugging the walls,and trying to reach the exit where she had heard the voices of the others. As she approached, she was concentrating so hard on the column in the middle of the room that she didn’t notice the wire between the two walls of the maze. She was about to slip into the corridor when her foot snagged on the tripwire, and the roof in the tunnel leading out of the room collapsed instantly. It didn’t hurt her, but it filled the tunnel completely.

“Ah! Dang it!”

Very carefully, she tried to climb over it, squeezing through the gap between the rest of the ceiling and the wreckage. Putting a hand on each wall, she very delicately climbed over the rubble, trying to to disturb any of it. She managed to pop down on the other side, and sent out another message.  _ “Where are you guys? Maybe stop moving for a second so we can find each other.” _

_ “Sure,” _ Icarus replied.  _ “Okay, look up?” _

Pandora looked up. Icarus cast a spell, and a light shot up vaguely further down.

_ “Okay. That’s helpful,” _ she replied.

She tried to follow that direction as the other two remained still. She managed to weave her way around, and turning a corner, she saw them at the other end of a tunnel. “Hi!”

“Pandora,” Mayes smiled in relief.

“You guys okay?”

“More or less.”

“You?” Icarus returned.

“Yeah!” she replied.

“It’s good to have you back.”

“Yeah, it’s good to be back. A found a room, and I found a statue that heals you.”

“Great!”

“That’s very good,” Mayes agreed.

“Uh, we found this,” Icarus pointed at the writing on the wall. “We think it might be one of the clues. We need to find three clues, right?”

“I think I might have found a clue,” Pandora realized.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, it said like, if you extinguish me, I will awake, or something like that.”

“That’s great, thank you. Good job!”

“It’s a good start,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah, that’s two clues!”

“So, I guess we keep going?” Pandora suggested. “I can show you where the room is.”

“And just make sure to try and avoid those weird pressure plates,” Mayes reminded her.

“Yeah, I drew around one of them.”

“So did I.”

“They don’t go back to the same place, they go randomly.”

“Oh, great.”

“That’s good to know,” Icarus replied, turning to Mayes. “I told you we shouldn’t have stepped on it.”

“I’m glad.”

As Icarus and Mayes began to walk to her, they noticed a tile between them that had an absence of foot traffic in the dust.

“Ah!” Icarus pointed.

Pandora leaned over. “What’s that?”

“It’s a naughty one. Okay, I’m gonna jump over it to get to you, okay?”

“Okay. Be careful.”

Icarus made it across no problem. “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay.”

Mayes drew another warning symbol by the platform before hopping over. Icarus held his hand out to help, but they were able to hop over with ease.

Pandora led them back up the tunnel, and they navigated back towards the main room following the tail mark she had made on the floor. The three of them climbed over the rubble.

“This is cool,” Icarus nodded. “So, box on a plinth?”

“But this is the room where I saw the ceiling collapse,” Pandora warned them.

“Ah, so be careful of that,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah, careful.”

“I mean, it makes sense,” Icarus replied. “Considering the passage we just came from, the roof collapsed.” From what they could see on the ceiling, it appeared to be a single slab of stone, not attached to the walls, with a thin, dark gap between the walls and the ceiling itself. “So it’s trapped somehow…”

He went up to read the plinth.

“Maybe that’s another level,” Pandora looked up at the ceiling. “Like, that’s a platform that you can stand on?”

“Maybe. I tried to climb up earlier, but I only got about ten feet.”

Mayes quietly chuckled, and Icarus grinned at them.

“Just a theory,” Pandora continued.

“I mean, I think it’s a good theory,” Icarus considered. “It’s worth checking.” He went back out to the rubble, climbing on top of it to try to see above the ceiling. But it was impossible, with the ceiling about 50 feet up. The plinth in the center, 20 feet up, had a stone chest on top of it. “I can’t really tell.”

“Is it worth seeing if there’s a way to get to that plinth?” Mayes considered.

“Oh, yeah. Well, yes and also… I feel like we need to find the other clue.”

“Yeah, I don’t think we should do this yet if it’s… it’s the first sort of big room we’ve found in the middle of the maze itself.”

“Well, at least we know where it is,” Pandora replied. “And that there is this box on the top.”

“Yeah, and we made markings, so we can get here easily again,” Icarus agreed. “This is a good place to start again, though.”

“A good vantage point.”

“To try and decide which direction we want to go,” Mayes nodded.

“There’s all these different exits,” Pandora pointed to a few. “Which I’m guessing will take you to different parts of the maze.”

“Okay,” Icarus grinned. “Good find.”

“We can always come back here if one of us gets separated.”

“That’s a good idea,” Mayes agreed.

“Really good idea,” Icarus followed. “We can just come back here. Uh, so you’ve got your paints and you’ve got your stone, really cute, uh… Yeah, cool. Let’s…”

“Let’s pick an exit and go.”

“Your turn, Mayes.”

Mayes pointed to a path, and they walked out. Icarus led at the front while Mayes filed in the middle, with Pandora keeping an eye behind them. They navigated forwards. Although it was a curvy tunnel with many twists and turns, there weren’t any exits from the tunnel.

Suddenly, Icarus stepped onto a tile, and disappeared.

“Icarus?” Pandora called.

“Oh, this is great,” Mayes sighed. They drew another warning symbol.

  
  


Icarus appeared inside a cell. It was a pitch black room, apart from his torch, which shed dim light around him. It was a long, slim, rectangular prison. Looking through the bars of the cell, he could see other cells, with what looked to be skeletal remains inside of them. He reached for the bars, moving them slightly. They were locked.

Icarus froze for a minute. Swallowing hard, he stepped away, shaking his arms and bouncing in place. “Come on, come on, you’ll be fine.”

Breathing heavily, he started looking around for any loose stones or loose bars. There was nothing on the floor where he was, and the bars were not at all loose. There was another cell immediately to his left with piles of bones in it, that stunk of old musty rot. He could reach through to grab a bone, but he couldn’t open the doors.

  
  


After Icarus disappeared, the other two heard a cry for help somewhere else in the maze. It didn’t sound like Icarus’s voice.

“Help me! Help! It’s coming!”

Mayes grimaced. “I don’t like that.”

“I don’t like it either,” Pandora frowned.

“Can you… You were messaging Icarus before, can you do it again?”

“I can try, but I don’t know who it is.”

“No, try messaging Icarus. Just to see where he is before we do anything else.”

“Oh, okay.”

She sent out the spell.  _ “Icarus, are you okay?” _

Icarus took a deep, steadying breath.  _ “Yeah. Yeah. No, great. No, I’m fine. Yeah, good to hear you.” _

_ “Where are you? Like, what’s around you?” _

_ “...I’m in a cell?” _

_ “In a cell…” _

Pandora relayed the information.

“Shit,” Mayes sighed.

_ “I dunno how to get out,” _ Icarus continued.  _ “It’s locked.” _

_ “Okay, um… Is there a ceiling where you are?” _

There was, but it didn’t look to be part of the maze, and he couldn't see the maze walls.  _ “Yeah. Doesn’t look like part of the maze.” _

_ “Okay, um… Just hold tight, we’ll come and find you.” _

_ “Sure.” _

Icarus grabbed one of the bones. He broke it to make it sharper, and tried to jimmy the lock, putting his hand through the bars to break it. He couldn’t get it open, and he heard something rattling and moving further down the room in one of the cells. Holding his torch out towards it, he saw a pile of bones moving slowly in the corner of another room.

“Oh, is this your friend?” Icarus grimaced at the bone in his hand. “Ugh… Okay, okay...”

  
  


Mayes and Pandora continued to wander around, trying to find Icarus. They had been in the maze for about forty minutes so far. Between the two of them, they managed to weave their way back through the rooms that they had been through, and pick their way through a few more tunnels without triggering any other traps. They made their way across the map, but they didn’t know what direction Icarus was in.

At one point, they heard a scraping sound ahead of them. They stopped and backed up against a wall, peering over with the dim light of their slowly fading torches. There was a dark, tall figure, maybe 12 feet tall, dragging a heavy weapon like some kind of axe behind them, and leaving a trail in the dirt. It sloped around a corner, and the pair stayed still and steady until the sound disappeared.

Suddenly, there were footsteps behind them. They turned around in time to see a massive creature, easily fifteen feet tall, a minotaur seemingly made of white crystal. It ran at them with one clawed hand, swinging at Mayes’ back. It hit, and they felt a stabbing pain in the back of their shoulder as they did their best to dodge.

Immediately, the creature turned and fled. They were left standing there in the tunnel, the creature having disappeared around a corner.

Pandora blinked in surprise. “Do we follow it?”

Mayes was staring down the hall, mouth agape. “...Hm.”

There was blood dripping from a couple of cuts across the back of Mayes’ shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Pandora worried.

“Yeah, I’m just… Hm. I feel like there’s something more to that.”

“Should we follow it?”

“...Yeah, why not.”

They tried to pursue footprints and other signs of it, and for a while they could follow hoofprints in the dirt and scratch marks along the walls. As they reached another junction with too many directions to choose from, they realized there was a scattering of the prints everywhere, some new and some old, but they couldn’t tell the difference.

“We lost it,” Pandora grumbled.

“Okay. Pandora?”

“Mhm?”

“Wrap your tail around my waist?”

“Yes?”

“And we each face a different direction.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

“And we just… You lead. Towards where we think Icarus might be. Or, towards anywhere.”

“Okay.”

Mayes’ eyes still hurt. As the torch died, they lit their oil lamp, a hooded lantern. They passed it to Pandora.

  
  


It had been about twenty minutes since Icarus had heard Pandora’s voice in the message. He was stuck in the cell as his torch dimmed down to nothingness.

“No no no, please, no no no no… No!”

He pressed his hands to his face, taking shaking breaths. “Please no…”

He was barely holding back tears. He backed up against one of the walls, sitting down and holding his holy symbol to his chest. “Come on, please, please. Please, let me out. Please. I promise I promise I promise I promise please please please let me out.”

After another moment, he let out a spell. In complete, utter fear, the cells around him shook, the bones in the cell next to him blasted away against the wall as he let out a wave of thunder. The door in front of him bent like it was about to give.

In the very faint light of the torch, he could barely see it. His eyes focused on his exit, and he did it again. This time, the cell door blasted off. The one next to him swung open as if it hadn’t been locked to begin with.

He scrambled to his feet and out of the room. As he moved out of the cell, he couldn’t see, but he could hear things moving in the other cells in the room. He heard the creaking of cell doors as they opened.

He charged out. He felt something swipe at his arm through one of the cell doors, but he managed to slip out into the main labyrinth unharmed. It was a little bit lighter in there, his eyes adjusting just enough to see shadows and shapes. He was standing in a small corridor, with turns in three different directions.

Without stopping to think, he went left, running hard and fast. He reached a dead end, smacking straight into a wall. Turning around, a hand on the wall this time, he felt his way along and took every turn he was presented. He went left again, heading in the other direction. The wall curved back around on itself.

He headed another ten feet forward and the wall turned again. He followed it, doing this several more times until he came to another dead end. He was in a small corner of the maze. As he stood there, he felt something cold seeping out of the wall, like a hand touching at his shoulder.

He sent out a spell. There was a flash of light, and he saw three or four ghostly, humanoid hands reaching out of the wall around him. They blasted into nothingness. Still holding his holy Kord symbol to him, he took a breath. “Pull yourself together, come on. Come on, it’s not… You’re fine.”

He slapped himself in the face, and continued, managing to work his way back around the corners of the maze. Though he didn’t know where he was going, he was very careful to edge his feet along the floor until he wove back into the central room. It was bright in there, and he had been following the light from three turns away. He made his way back in, and sighed in relief as he entered. There were four bright torches on the wall, with the familiar plinth in the middle.

He sat with his back to the plinth, taking a minute to calm down.

Pandora messaged him again.  _ “Icarus? You okay still? We’re coming!” _

Icarus stumbled over his reply.  _ “Uh, I got out! I’m in, I’m in the central room, I’m in the… the room with the plinth.” _

_ “Okay, we’ll come back and find you.” _

  
  


It took another five to ten minutes, but the pair was able to find their way back, using the markings on the floor to make it back safely. By the time they returned, Icarus seemed fine, having fully hyped himself back up again.

Pandora hugged him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine!”

“It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah, really good to see you both.” Icarus looked over Mayes’ wound. “Are you okay?”

“Oh,” they shrugged. “Some… thing, stabbed me in the back.”

“Yeah, there’s like a… like a…” Pandora tried to find the words, “Crystal bull thing?”

“But also, like, maybe another one.”

“Maybe another one.”

“We heard someone else’s voice,” Mayes announced. “Yelling for help.”

“...Uncomfortable,” Icarus decided.

“Yeah.”

“Can we all try to stay together?” Pandora asked. “Like maybe look out for those things on the floor a bit more?”

“Yeah, definitely!” Icarus smiled. “No problem, we can do that.”

“This lower lantern doesn’t hurt my eyes as much,” Mayes gestured. “So I can stay in the front and check for traps a bit better, maybe?”

“Sure.”

Mayes felt like the pain was slowly starting to fade away. This room was brighter, but it didn’t hurt as much as it did earlier. “It’s actually kind of wearing off a bit, so I should be fine again real soon.”

“Good to know!”

Pandora could sense that the ripple of magic was subsiding. The effect that had been set on Mayes was coming to an end. “I don’t think it’ll do any permanent damage.”

“That’s good,” they nodded. “It’s a start. We should keep moving, and just…”

“Keep an eye on the floor.”

“Basically, whoever is at the back, kind of watch the back? Because that thing literally ran up, stabbed me, and ran away like a coward,” they scoffed.

Icarus chuckled. “Sure, I’ll stay at the back then. I don’t have a torch anymore, though.”

“Do you have a lantern?”

“No.”

“Well, okay. If we find another one, I have one more flask of oil.”

“Sure.”

“And I mean, we do have these torches in the corner of the room,” Pandora pointed out. “But I don’t want to touch these ones.”

“No, I feel like they’re part of this,” Icarus agreed. “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. As long as we’re together, yeah?”

They headed down the path they had tried before, proceeding up the tunnel and spotting their markings from before warning them to jump over certain tiles. They weaved through tunnels, seeing a few different options, and headed forwards to find themselves coming to what seemed to be an opposite wall. Down the wall was another doorway.

“There’s another doorway,” Mayes pointed. “Should we go check it out?”

“We gotta check out everything, right?” Icarus replied. “We still need to find another clue, and…”

“A cypher… the principles… all sorts of things.”

There was no door, just a doorway, They entered a small room with a dirty floor, and the corners were littered with bones. It looked as though it was a feasting chamber of some kind. Glancing at the bones, it was obvious to see huge teeth marks in them, like they had been gnawed on.

“Something comes here for lunch,” Mayes observed.

There were scattered broken boxes and pots, and in the top corner, another tunnel bored into the wall like the one they had seen at the beginning of the maze. There was a pile of dirt on the floor there.

“Okay, this is gonna sound weird,” Icarus warned, “But I think, potentially, the bones might move.”

Pandora regarded them. “...Okay.”

“Okay,” Mayes echoed.

“Just be aware of that,” Icarus advised. “Let’s investigate. This looks disgusting.”

There was not much to find in the rubble or the bones. Pushing them aside, they were simply old bones. This place had been smashed up, and most of it looked before the time of the carvings they had seen in Common, with plenty of old shards of pottery. When they moved on to the tunnel, they saw something, the corner of an object glinting in the dug out dirt. They found a handful of fingernails in the dirt, as though the tunnel had been dug out by hand, but they also found an iron key.

“A key!” Pandora announced.

“Great!” Icarus grinned.

“That’s great,” Mayes approved. “We need a key.”

“There’s also fingernails in here,” she reported.

Mayes shook their head. “Didn’t need to know that.”

“Sorry, it’s just really gross.”

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Icarus frowned.

“It’s okay. Oh no, I hope that no one else was in here, trying to get out…”

Icarus thought for a moment. “...I mean, they always say… that… I know that everyone jokes, that people die in here, but…”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t struggling.”

“My question is, then,” Mayes interjected, “Why is there someone else in here? Potentially. Unless it’s a trick.”

“It might be a trick,” Icarus considered.

“Maybe,” Pandora worried.

“Just keep our guards up, we’ll be fine.”

“I think now that the three of us are back together, the next time we hear that voice, maybe we should go investigate,” Mayes suggested. “Just to see if it’s part of a greater puzzle.”

They agreed, and inspected the tunnel. It seemed to be structurally sound, about the size for an adult person to crawl through, carved into the dirt.

“Okay, I can have a look,” Pandora volunteered.

She crawled through the tunnel. It wasn’t particularly long. As she crawled into the next room, there was another sarcophagus at an angle, causing the end of the tunnel to appear dark. Instead, she was able to push it and stand up in the next room. There were two sarcophagi in there, neither nailed shut, with a bunch of different unbroken pots and crates.

She listened for mechanical sounds, but instead she heard something slightly scraping in one of them. “I don’t like the sound of that…”

“Everything okay?” Icarus called.

“Should we come through at all?” Mayes asked.

“Yeah, carefully, I think,” she replied. “There might be something in one of these sarcophagi.”

“I’ll… I’ll wait here,” Icarus decided.

Mayes squeezed through.

Pandora hopped over the sarcophagus to make room for Mayes while Icarus stayed behind. They began to inspect the room. On the pottery there were more symbols, and more drawings of the six horned bull creature. From readings they had done over the last four years, both of them recognized the symbol of Baphomet, a demon lord of the Abyss. The pottery itself looked old, the paint flaking and ancient. It was more than a few centuries old, perhaps older than Erran itself.

Pandora gulped. “Okay…”

“This…” Mayes frowned. “You know, when we went into this, I thought that perhaps the school would have  _ made _ something, but this just seems like…”

“This was always here.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. Okay…”

“Okay.”

They didn’t hear anything coming from the second sarcophagus. It didn’t seem to be trapped. Mayes had Pandora stand back, and they slowly pushed it open. There was nothing but a shield inside.

Mayes picked the shield up. It was a round hoplite shield, and it looked completely normal apart from the fact that on the center stud there was a carving of a bow and arrow.

“That’s cool,” Pandora observed.

“It is cool.”

“I wish that the one that we opened before had had one of those in it.”

“Yeah. That would be nice.”

“Rather than just knocking me out.”

“You guys done in there?” Icarus’s slightly anxious voice called through the tunnel. He had been left in the dark as the others took the light with them.

“Yeah sorry, we found some stuff.”

“Just having a look,” Mayes followed.

“It’s okay,” Icarus replied.

“Do you want to come through?” Pandora offered.

“...No.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, just… Not over the moon about the small space, don’t worry about it.”

“Okay. We can come back, just give us a minute.”

“Sure, sure, sure sure sure, sure.”

Mayes looked back to Pandora. “Should we also check the noisey one?”

“I don’t know,” Pandora frowned.

It sounded like there was something big inside.

“Well it’s not rats or scorpions,” Mayes concluded. “It’s… maybe a skeleton?”

“Do you think we can take it?”

“...I mean…”

“Or, like, if it’s just going to be a skeleton and nothing else?”

“What if there’s something in there with it?”

Pandora sighed, resigning herself to it. “Fine.”

“You throw the lid off, and I’ll just stab it straight away?”

“Okay.”

As they were discussing, Icarus started to leave his own room, running a hand on the wall to try to get to the room the others were in. He edged along the wall for about fifteen feet before it went back on itself. He followed, and continued until it turned another corner. He kept his hand on the wall the whole way in the dark, feeling along, until his foot caught on something on the ground.

The other two heard something trigger from just outside the room, and Icarus felt a net forced around him, pinning him to the opposite wall. He shouted out.

“What was that?” Pandora glanced up.

“Oh, shit,” Mayes followed. “Okay, leave this for a second.”

“Okay!”

They went running after Icarus’s voice. Stepping out of the room, the light of the lantern immediately lit up the sight of Icarus pinned to the wall from a net that had ejected through the vines on the opposite side. Mayes set about cutting him out, pulling out a dagger to rip through different parts of the net. Small nails had pinned the corners into the wall, but it was easy enough to cut through the middle and free him. “Hey Icarus.”

“Hey,” he replied.

“Are you okay?” Pandora worried.

“Yeah, I was trying to get to you guys.”

“Well, you’re here now,” Mayes shrugged.

“It’s okay,” Pandora agreed.

“No, yeah,” Icarus shook himself. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“Do you want to come kill a skeleton?”

“We think it’s a skeleton,” Mayes clarified.

“Sure,” he agreed.

“Cool.”

“As long as we got some light in there, let’s go.”

As Mayes’ eyes felt better, they took off the hood on the lantern to shed further light around them. Bright light shone in the room, and they could clearly see the two sarcophagi, one open and the other closed.

Mayes held up the shield. “Do you want a cool shield? I can’t use it, you can look after it for now.”

“Sure,” Icarus nodded. Mayes passed it over, and he put it on his back, swapping out his glaive to hold it at the ready.

Mayes took out both of their swords as Pandora positioned herself over the sarcophagus. Standing on one side of it, she reached around to pull the lid towards herself. Pulling it towards her, the fairly heavy stone slab fell onto the floor.

Inside was a mass of bones filling the eight foot sarcophagus. With a chorus of cracking and popping, they started to unfold out of the box. As they did, they started putting themselves together in a vaguely humanoid shape, with pieces of armour strapped to it. With a massive jaw and a gigantic skull, it was not quite the size of the hill giant, but at least the height and a half of any of them.

Mayes started forward, swinging out, taking one swipe with their katana as Icarus swung his glaive at it. They were both crammed into the doorway of the space, landing blows on it as it put itself together. A few pieces of bones splintered off it immediately, clattering down to the ground as the rest of the mass slowly climbed out of the sarcophagus. It didn’t have a weapon on it, but it had extended claws from bony hands. It swung once at Pandora and then at Mayes, landing the first and missing the second.

As it tried to get out of the box, the bones began to collapse a second time, raining down onto their heads before reshaping again. Mayes swung out once more, missing with Silence but landing a solid blow with the other sword. Icarus summoned his spiritual weapon to attack it, and it swirled into existence above its head, whacking down. Another piece of bone splintered off its jaw as it moaned, the gigantic skeleton about three times the width of a person, wearing pieces of old armour and a helmet. He missed a second swing with the glaive, but his spiritual weapon returned to his side, floating next to him.

Pandora took out her pendulum, swinging it as she tried to cast out a spell, but it didn’t seem to take. The creature slashed out again, raking off the new scale mail armour Icarus wore before managing a hit on Mayes as they half dodged. The bones once again collapsed, raining down from the sky onto them. Pandora was struggling to stay standing as the projectiles fell down onto her.

Mayes moved to attack again, swinging in with both swords, but only managing to make contact on the first swing while the second slid through its ribs into empty space. Icarus sent a bit of healing magic Pandora’s way before trying to hit the creature with his glaive again, slamming it down into its face. Pandora’s crystal lit up red as she made another attempt to attack it. This time, she landed an impressive blow against the creature, a bolt of fire wailing into it.

“Oh my Gods, I hit something!”

“You did great!” Icarus called back.

“Hell yeah, Pandora!” Mayes followed.

The fire hit its armour, engulfing it for a moment as more pieces of bones fell, rattling to the ground. The creature retaliated against Pandora, clawing her as the second arm came to smack into Mayes’ face as they skillfully dodged and swung back with both blades. Quite a few of the bones had fallen off the colossal skeleton.

“Let’s make this thing sorry it woke up!” Icarus rallied.

“Break it apart, come on!” Mayes shouted.

As his spiritual weapon went up towards the creature’s chin, Icarus swung up his glaive. Its jaw was knocked clear off, and it let out a moan that resonated out of its skull at the top as the glaive took out a few more ribs.

Pandora sent out another firebolt, but this one went straight through the skeleton before exploding on the wall behind it, lighting up the wall for a second and burning away the vines. The creature collapsed through the three of them, creating an avalanche of bones through the doorway. Pandora was knocked to the floor as the bones reformed on the other side of them, and out the door.

Mayes rushed through, landing another impressive hit as the pile reformed with one less arm.

Icarus looked back into the room, clutching his holy symbol and sending out another bit of healing magic. “Pandora, you can do it, come on!”

He swiped up with his glaive at the creature as Pandora scrambled to her feet. She sent out another firebolt, and it just missed again as the creature swiped out, missing a blow against Icarus while just scraping Mayes. In such a narrow corridor, it was difficult to land a blow back. Mayes swiped and missed twice as the thing scurried away along the walls. Icarus nicked the wall with his glaive, a flash of sparks firing off against the stone before he pressed forth his spiritual weapon to pierce into it.

Pandora shot off one final spell, and made contact. The helmet of the creature’s half broken skeleton head rattled around as it heard the sound of bells ringing in its mind, and the pieces fell off it one by one until there was just a spine left. The head rolled onto the floor at their feet. “Ugh!”

“You did great!” Icarus cheered.

“Stay down!” Pandora ordered the bones, frustrated.

Icarus laughed, but the pieces continued to rattle. Mayes and Pandora began stomping on them. Though they tried to prevent it, the pieces of the juggernaut sized creature formed together into several smaller humanoids. Icarus kicked the original head, and off it went, punted down the hallway. It rattled down the corridor, bouncing off a wall before disappearing.

The rest of the bones continued to put themselves together, and they saw twelve humanoid shapes forming out of the remains.

Icarus raised his holy symbol, speaking Kord’s name and invoking that power. “You need to turn around.”

As they formed, ten of the skeletons immediately turned to the holy symbol and started backing away into the labyrinth. They disappeared at a slow pace, and somewhere in the distance they heard a trap go off, followed by the sound of bones shattering to the ground.

There were still two braver skeletons before them, standing around. Mayes darted through them, and with a single hit, the first was smashed into pieces. The bones didn’t move again, scattering everywhere. With their other sword, they managed to blow out several bones from the other, though it was still standing.

Icarus was still holding the holy symbol. “I said, in Kord’s name, you need to leave.”

Holy light issued out from the triton, and the skeleton shattered into pieces all over the ground.

Everything went still.

Icarus lowered the symbol, grinning. “Good job! You guys did great.”

Pandora went back to check the sarcophagus. It was empty.

Mayes sighed. “Okay, so the next time we find a rattling one, we don’t open it.”

“We leave it!” Pandora agreed.

“I’m sorry, I thought perhaps there would be something in there.”

“No. Worth a try.”

“Yeah, we gotta look in everything, haven’t we,” Icarus shrugged. “But, Pandora, you hit it! You did so good!”

“I hit it,” she gave a little smile. “I killed it, for a bit. And then it came back. Oh well.”

“Yeah, it’s somewhere off in the… that’s…”

“We’ve got to remember that those are out there now, though.”

“Yeah, that’s our problem for later.”

“Yeah.”

“Sure,” Mayes nodded. “At least they’re not very constitute. Is it worth having a stop for a second?”

“Please!”

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed.

“I could do with taking a break.”

“Can we try and get back to the middle? Can’t be that far, right?”

It didn’t take long. They headed back to the middle, and passed the remains of one of the skeletons ahead of them, where it had stepped on a trap and fallen into a pit where a floor tile had dropped away. They stepped over the teleportation tiles they marked, and headed back into the center for a rest.

The warm light of the torches in the corners of the room continued to flicker. They hadn’t died down at all. Although there were so many entrances, the room felt safe, and they were somehow comforted to be in a lit room with walls and a ceiling as they took their rest.

“You guys have done really great today,” Icarus smiled.

“You too,” Pandora replied.

“I’m happy to have you on my team.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, we work well together,” Mayes agreed.

“We do. This is really weird, because we have no idea how close to the end we are. Or how much of it we’ve done.”

“I feel like it goes deeper.”

“Probably,” Pandora sighed. “Should we take out what we have so far? Take stock?”

“Yeah, why not,” Icarus nodded. “That’d be a good thing to do.”

Pandora took out the cyclops eye wrapped in the parchment. “So we have this.”

“I got the two minotaur coins,” Mayes added.

“I got the shield with the bow and arrow,” Icarus followed.

“We got the key,” Pandora recalled.

“Yeah, we got the key. And two of the clues, about  _ if it’s answers you seek it’s gold I shall take _ , and  _ extinguish the light to bring me to life _ .”

“And then there was the book we found in the very first room.”

“That we can’t read,” Mayes frowned.

“Well, I guess I can spend some time trying to figure it out,” Icarus shrugged.

After studying it for a bit, noticing the links to Baphomet and the connections to Infernal, they were able to determine the book was likely written in Abyssal.

“I think this is Abyssal,” Pandora concluded. “I can’t read it.”

“That would make sense, considering that- oh yeah,” Mayes turned to Icarus, “We found stuff to do with Baphomet. In that room.”

Icarus blinked. “Oh, good. That’s… cool. That… should that be in here?”

“That’s my concern. I said to Pandora, when we started going on this test I thought it was something that the school had made, and obviously I guess they must alter stuff if they’re changing it to suit the students, but this feels like it was always here.”

“They just… used it? For the school?”

“And, some of the dangers that are within here don’t feel like the sorts of things our teachers would place here.”

“But they also said that things constantly, I mean, they might be, they’ve given us these bracelets…”

“It’s, I know…”

“I think, it’ll be fine. It’s here to test us, right?”

“I know, I get that. But something doesn’t sit right.”

“We’ve got this,” Icarus encouraged them.

“Would it be worth taking a look at the maze as a whole?” Pandora suggested. “Do you think?”

“From the top?”

Puck, who had been hiding in Pandora’s hair, came out to sit on her shoulder. “I can take a look,” she continued. “Or at least, Puck can, and then he can show me.”

“Yeah, that’s a really good idea!”

“Great,” Mayes approved.

Pandora sent the familiar out through a tunnel and up. The bird flew away and up over the top of the maze. Looking down into it through his eyes, Pandora could see countless corridors around her, but it was easy to discern that their room was right in the center. Looking around, she could see the hints of the paint marks of where they had been. There was one corner of the maze they hadn’t been to at all yet, and a yet unexplored path that led to steps at the other end.

Pandora went into the trance for a bit before Puck returned, landing on her shoulder as she returned to herself. “That was worth doing. There’s like a whole section we haven’t seen yet.”

“Okay…”

“Do you think you and Puck can lead us there?” Icarus asked.

“Maybe, yeah. I think so,” she replied. “And, right now, we’re right in the middle.”

“Okay, that makes sense.”

“And then, at one side, there are steps leading up somewhere else.”

“Okay…” Mayes considered.

“Okay. That’s really good to know, good job!” Icarus smiled.

“Yeah, good job buddy,” Pandora praised her bird. “He found the quickest path to it. We should probably go to the bit we haven’t seen as well.”

“Okay. And then we know that we can get that way later,” Mayes rationalized.

“Yeah.”

“Awesome. But, it’s good to just stop and take a breather for now.”

“Yeah. Weirdly got tons of energy still though,” Icarus chuckled.

“Feels good to take a minute,” Pandora replied. “I’m a little bit concerned that this middle section is called The Nest, though. That’s a little bit unnerving.”

“Yeah, right?”

“I don’t think that that’s a bad thing,” Mayes countered. “Like, nest… a safe space for young things?”

“Maybe, but also,” Pandora worried, “ _ If you extinguish the flames I come to life? _ What does that mean? That can’t be good.”

“But that might not be for here. The other clue that we found didn’t seem to have anything relating to it in the general area, so it could be something to bear in mind for later.”

“Yeah, a clue for later,” Icarus nodded.

“This feels like a safe space.”

“For now, at least,” Pandora agreed. “It’s good. Let’s take some time and then go and explore that bit we haven’t seen.”

“I do kind of want to climb up there and see if I can open that chest though,” Icarus admitted.

“I mean, same,” Mayes shrugged.

Pandora looked up at it. “How do we get up there?”

“I could give Mayes a boost,” Icarus suggested.

“You could give me a boost,” Mayes echoed.

“You want a boost?”

“I would love a boost.”

“Okay, let’s give you a boost.”

Mayes gave a teasing grin. “Toss me, fish man.”

“Don’t forget that we saw the ceiling collapse in this room,” Pandora warned.

“Okay.”

“So be careful.”

“I’m not gonna go for the ceiling.”

Icarus tried to lift Mayes up, and stumbled. Trying a second time, Mayes stood on his shoulders, and then on his hands as Icarus braced himself and raised them up. Mayes balanced perfectly, their eyes just about level with the bottom of the stone chest on top of the plinth.

It looked like a perfectly ordinary chest, the kind they would have in their dormitories to keep their things in, but it wasn’t real. It was just carved.

“Um… This is fake. It’s not a real chest. It just looks like a statue of a chest, but… Pandora, do you have that key?”

“Yeah,” she replied.

“Can you toss it?”

She reached up with her tail to throw it to them. Mayes went to push it into the keyhole, but it stopped a centimeter in, because it wasn’t a real keyhole.

They sighed. “Just put me down.”

Icarus put them down.

“Thanks. Here’s the key back.”

“Thank you,” Pandora took it.

“It was worth looking,” Icarus shrugged.

“Yeah.”

“Sure, but,” Mayes frowned in thought. “Why have a fake chest?”

Icarus looked at the clue. “Because if we extinguish the light, then it comes to life?”

“Then it becomes a real chest,” Mayes overlapped.

Pandora gasped. “Oh! Okay.”

“So,” Icarus considered, “Do you want to go up there and try that when the lights in here are down?”

Mayes thought. “...If we can?”

“I mean, you can do things with fire,” Icarus turned to the tiefling.

“I can do that,” Pandora agreed.

“Okay!”

“Sure,” Mayes nodded, taking the key back. “Give yourself a stretch.”

Icarus did a few squats, stretching out. “Okay, climb back up.”

Icarus held Mayes up as they balanced. There were four torches around the room.

“You guys okay? You stable?” Pandora asked.

“Yeah, I don’t think I stretched very well, so let’s do this quickly,” Icarus replied.

“Hurry this up,” Mayes agreed.

Pandora extinguished the flames one by one, the room growing darker. As the flame of the last torch went out, they saw in the last flickers of light, the stone of the chest morphing into wood before them.

Before they could do anything, they heard the deafening whirring of cogs and the rattling of heavy chains. Mayes was forced to dive off of Icarus’s hands as the whole ceiling dropped down towards them.

  
  



	4. Trial and Error, Episode Four

They braced themselves for impact, preparing for the ceiling to collapse on top of them, only to realize nothing had hit the ground. A few bits of dust fell from the ceiling, and they looked up to realize that the ceiling had stopped falling right on top of the chest.

The ceiling was still in one complete piece, suspended over the chest and holding the lid down. It was now dark in the room, with Pandora the only one able to see.

“Are we dead?” Icarus wondered.

“Is everyone okay?” Pandora asked.

Mayes stood from where they had landed. “I think so.”

“It’s really dark,” Icarus continued. “And I can’t see.”

“The ceiling has just… stopped,” Pandora explained.

“Hang on, let me bring the lantern around,” Mayes pulled out the light.

As soon as the light hit the room, the ceiling started lifting. They heard cogs and chains once more as the ceiling piece that had detached from the walls rose back up to its full fifty foot height. As it moved away from the chest, the wood of the box turned back to stone.

“Hm. A puzzle,” Mayes concluded. “So we’ve gotta somehow get that down or open... before…?”

“I don’t think it’ll come down, because it’s stone right now,” Icarus replied. “We need to keep the lights on, but make it dark.”

“So,” Pandora thought, “When the lights are on, the chest is stone and the ceiling is up. And when the lights are off, the chest is wood and the ceiling comes down so we cannot open it.”

“Yes, that seems to be the long and short of it,” Mayes confirmed.

“Just so we are all on the same page.”

“We need to find a way to keep the light in this room from… reaching up?” Icarus brainstormed. “I guess?”

“Or moving the chest before the ceiling comes down on it?”

“Maybe, but it came down so quickly that I don’t think we have the time.”

In addition to their problems, the chest seemed to be the only thing stopping the ceiling from falling all the way down.

“Maybe we can keep your light on,” Icarus thought, “If you shut the shade around it?”

“So it’s only partially lit?” Pandora clarified.

“Or if we cover the chest with a blanket or something?” Mayes offered. “So the light doesn’t get onto it?”

Icarus shook his head. “You can barely reach.”

“And we still need to be able to get up there and get it,” Pandora added.

“Alright, can anyone light the torches again?”

“Oh yeah, I can do that.”

Pandora took a bit of flame from Mayes’ lantern, flicking it over to the brazier in each corner. The room was illuminated in bright light once again, and the chest was solid stone.

“So, up there has gotta be dark,” Icarus thought. “No, light…”

“The chest,” Mayes tilted their head, “Needs to be…”

“The chest needs to be in darkness for it to turn into a real chest,” Pandora explained.

“But the room needs to be light to keep the ceiling up.”

“We need a way to… cover the lights down here?” Icarus guessed.

“We just make it dark up there. Somehow.”

Pandora looked up. “Just dark on the chest?”

“If the room has to be light for the ceiling to not come down, and the chest has to be dark for it to be accessible, if there’s some way to make just the chest dark then… that seems to be the solution. But how?”

“I don’t have anything with me,” Icarus frowned.

“I might be able to do something,” Pandora offered. “I could cast darkness.”

“Oh!” Mayes nodded. “That’s sweet.”

“I mean, it’s difficult for anyone else to see through it when you’re up there, because it’s magical darkness. So, I guess… I don’t know if we’ll need to get it down, or someone opens it in the dark up there?”

“I guess we can just see if it’ll move,” Icarus decided. “But it’s worth a try, that’s a really good idea!”

“Okay. I can only do it once though, so.”

“Sure,” Mayes replied. “I mean, it’d just be like picking a lock with my eyes closed. Or, there’s a key. So it could be the right key.”

“Just see if you can move it, I guess,” Icarus suggested.

“Okay,” Pandora agreed. “Do you guys want to get up there so we can…?”

Mayes clapped their hands. “Come on Icarus, lift me up there again.”

Icarus got into position. “Alright, let’s go.”

He managed to lift Mayes up and into the air once more. Their hands reached the top, and they felt steadier this time. Mayes put their thumb over the keyhole, the key ready in their other hand.

“Can you get up onto the plinth?” Pandora asked.

“Uh, not really,” Mayes called back.

“How are we gonna reach inside?” Icarus asked.

“I’ll do it blindly.”

“You sure?” Pandora worried.

“Yes.”

“But maybe you can get it off the plinth? Once it is dark?”

“Sure, let’s see what happens to the ceiling.”

“Okay…”

“At least we’re prepared for it now,” Icarus agreed.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Mayes repeated.

“I can only do this once!”

“Please.”

“Okay…”

They braced themselves, and Pandora moved her hands to cast darkness over the chest. They prepared for the sound of the ceiling dropping, but nothing happened. Mayes felt the material of the chest morphing under their fingers until they were touching an iron lock on a wooden chest.

“Is it working?” Pandora called.

Mayes inserted the key, and it clicked open. “Pandora, can you catch?”

“Ah, okay!” she scrambled to the side as Mayes pushed the chest off the plinth.

Pandora managed to see the corner of the box popping out of the sphere of darkness. Diving down, she swooped in to grab it.

“Good catch!” Icarus smiled.

“Okay, we got it!” Pandora called up.

Icarus helped Mayes to the ground, and went to look. “Sweet! We did it!”

“We did it!”

“Go team,” Mayes grinned.

“Good job guys!”

Icarus offered out high fives.

“Should we see what’s in it?” Pandora asked.

“Hell yeah,” Mayes approved.

Icarus leaned in to look. “Hopeful it’s one of the clues.”

Pandora opened the box very slowly, peering inside the hull of it.

It was empty.

She looked up, and there was something engraved onto the inside of the lid. Another statement.  _ If weapons you wield, give me one, and I’ll wake. _

“If weapons you wield, give me one and I’ll wake,” she reported.

“So perhaps this is related to the coin one?” Mayes considered. “Maybe we’re gonna come across some statues with empty hands or something. Perhaps it’s just information for later.”

“This is great, we’ve made progress!” Icarus cheered.

”Good job guys,” Pandora smiled.

“We should start moving again,” Mayes advised.

Icarus held out a hand. “I know I keep going on about it, but I feel like we need to go back to the entrance. Because there’s still that place we didn’t look. If you said there’s stairs at the end, then that’s the way we need to go.”

“That might be the way out,” Pandora considered. “Or, onto the next bit.”

“Yeah, so if we just head back to the beginning, just look through there just in case. We don’t want to miss anything, you know?”

“We should also look at that part we haven’t looked in at all yet.”

“Oh yeah, definitely. We’ll do that on the way back.”

“It’ll be easier to go all the way back first, because we have the arrows,” Mayes reminded them.

Suddenly, they heard the slow release of gas from the tunnels to the north, a sharp hissing sound.

Icarus looked around. “It’s either gas or snakes,” he warned them. Rolling in from the top entrances of the naos, they saw quite a thick, odorless fog forming at ground level and heading towards them. “Okay…”

“Okay, out,” Mayes pointed to the other side of the room.

“Out,” Pandora agreed.

“Out.”

“Out!”

As they headed out, climbing over the wreckage in the tunnel from earlier, they saw more of the smoke simmering at ground level throughout all the tunnels. It was slowly filling up the different parts of the maze, creeping to about waist height.

“We need to move quickly then,” Icarus advised.

“Cool,” Mayes sighed. “And we can’t even see if there are traps or anything. We can’t even see the floorboards.”

Pandora knew of various different kinds of magical fogs, and though she wasn’t sure what this kind in particular was, she did get a sense of the arcane from it, though it didn’t seem to be dangerous.

“This might just be a timer warning,” Icarus thought.

“Maybe,” Pandora worried.

“So let’s go back to the entrance quickly, and then get this done.”

The longer they spent, the higher the fog rose. They began to travel, confident at first knowing they had followed the path a couple of times before, until they realized that they were reaching out to touch a wall they didn’t know through the fog as it crept to eye level. It was thick, and they couldn’t see through it at all. They were navigated off their path, finding themselves in another corner of the maze where the fog was less thick. To their right was a door with a padlock on it.

“There’s a locked door here,” Pandora reported.

“Sweet. Not for long,” Mayes stepped forward.

“Get it Mayes.”

The padlock was stiffer and more unusual than most normal padlocks. After a moment, Mayes recognized it as an arcane lock. “Oh shoot.”

“What’s wrong?” Icarus asked.

“I think this is a magical lock.”

“Can you do anything with that?”

“You can do it with normal tools, but it’s just a lot harder.”

“Can I help you?” Pandora offered.

Icarus gave Mayes another pat on the shoulder, sending yet another boost of guiding magic through them. “Try again. We believe in you.”

They tried again, but it didn’t open.

“Okay,” Icarus strategized. “So, arcane lock means somewhere there’s gonna be an arcane key.”

“Perhaps.”

“Okay,” Pandora nodded. “So, I guess this is somewhere we can come back to if we find another key?”

“Yes.”

Icarus sighed. “Okay, I’ve got something that I can do to get rid of the fog temporarily, but it only lasts for about a minute.”

The fog didn’t seem to have any effect on them, other than making it really hard to see anything. As Icarus readied himself, suddenly, he had a better idea.

He took the shield off his back, and wafted the fog away.

“Waft!” he giggled.

“We should mark this place before we go, maybe draw a little key and an arrow?” Pandora suggested.

Mayes complied, taking out their paints.

The three continued on. Wafting the shield through the air gave them an extra four feet of visibility in front of them for about ten seconds before it filled up again.

“Be careful of the floor as well,” Pandora warned.

“And also of statues coming to stab you in the back,” Mayes added.

As they moved back through the passages, Icarus watched the floor, and identified a trap. The three of them navigated over it, and realized their previous mistake. They had missed one little turn, which had led them away from the entrance. After another ten minutes slowly tracking through the maze, with Icarus thoroughly amused by wafting his shield at the front, they found themselves back at the start. Returning to the room with the bright flames blocking off the two statues to the start of the maze, they were convinced they were safe.

“Good job!” Pandora smiled at the triton.

Mayes pressed forwards. “So let’s go check out this tunnel then.”

They still heard rattling inside a couple of the sarcophagi in the first chamber, but they were nailed shut. The trio moved into the small room with the desks, and saw the tunnel. It was about as small as the other one they had passed through just before they had reached the juggernaut.

Mayes and Pandora began to crawl, and Icarus took a breath before doing the same. He got about halfway through the tunnel before he had to stop, taking a few breaths and a big, deep one to calm himself down. But it wasn’t a long tunnel, only about ten feet long, and there were a couple of candles flickering on the other side. Reaching the others, he stepped out into a small altar room.

It was filled with candles and incense that made them dizzy as soon as they stood up. There was a door immediately to their right, and they could see a little bit of fog wisping under it from the outside.

“So I guess that’s back into the main maze,” Pandora inferred.

“Must be,” Icarus nodded.

Mayes eyed the door. “Probably.”

Pandora recognized the altar from her vision. There was a statue of the same Baphomet figure behind the altar, with a piece of cloth draped over the stone, and some dark red stains smeared over it. On top of it was a key.

“I’m gonna check for traps first,” Icarus decided. Then, he turned to Mayes. “You can check for traps really well, can’t you? Just to be sure?”

“Maybe we should not touch anything,” Pandora warned.

“I was gonna say, if you can maybe get a vibe off this key?” Mayes returned. “Because if there’s a magic lock and a magic key, I don’t want it to be a bad magic key.”

“Okay.”

The familiar feeling of Icarus's guiding magic settled over both of them as they set about their tasks. Mayes was fairly certain the room wasn’t trapped, and Pandora did not get an arcane impression from the key itself. However, the statue behind it was simmering with arcane energy. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but there was an aura.

“The key is not magical,” she reported. “But the statue is magical.”

“Cool,” Mayes nodded. “Who wants to pick up the key?”

“I… I could try,” Pandora offered.

Taking another piece of parchment from her bag, she tried to take the key. As she did, two short bursts of flame came from the nostrils of the statue into Pandora’s face. She managed to pull herself back quickly, and coupled with her tiefling resistance to fire, she came away mostly unscathed. “Ah! It’s hot!”

“You good?” Mayes worried.

Pandora blinked it away. “I’m okay. I think that could have been a lot worse.”

Icarus was standing with his arms outstretched, frozen as he had reached out to pull her to safety, his mouth agape. “You’re so cool.”

“That’s rad,” Mayes agreed.

Pandora held up the key. “I have it though.”

“Good job!” Icarus grinned.

“I guess.”

“Do you wanna see if we can maybe find our way back to that lock?” Mayes suggested.

Icarus wrung his hands. “So, something I was thinking about… is these visions you saw. This sounds like one of them that you told us about, and the middle room sounds like one of them that you told us about… And then there’s two minotaur statues with a coin and a key.”

“A coin and a sword,” Pandora corrected.

“A sword, um… so do we have to find a coin and a sword to put in these statues? Because, the newest clue that we found,  _ if you give me a weapon to wield, give me one and I’ll awake. _ ”

“Most likely,” Mayes considered.

Pandora frowned. “Do we want it to wake though?”

“It’s probably part of the test,” Icarus reasoned.

“I guess. It’s good to think about.”

“I’ve got those minotaur coins,” Mayes recalled. “But they were silver, not gold. So I don’t know.”

“Well maybe we still have things to find. I feel like we haven’t seen the whole of this place.”

“There’s that place that your familiar saw as well.”

“Yeah, we need to go there.”

“So we should definitely try and check that out, and see if this key works on that room we were just at.”

Icarus pointed to the other door. “Should we try this door then?”

“Yeah, we can see where it leads us,” Pandora agreed.

They tried to open the door, and it rattled against a padlock.

Mayes blinked. “Don’t… If that…” They trailed off, taking a breath and pursuing their lips. “If that locked door is this room…”

“I don’t feel like it will be,” Icarus countered.

“I’m gonna be mad,” Mayes concluded. “But let’s go find it.”

“We should try this door first,” Pandora reasoned. “Even just to burn it down or something.”

“Why not.”

Pandora cast a firebolt in her hand, throwing it at the door. The old, dry wood instantly ignited. It didn’t burn up quickly, but it caught easily and started to smoke. They had to cover their mouths as the smoke began to fill the room, but it began to break down the door, as the wood itself was rather fragile. Pandora swung up a foot and kicked, and more pieces splintered away, though the bit with the lock remained. She extinguished the rest of the flames with a wave of her hand, and the trio of students climbed through the hole.

They stepped back out into the maze, exactly where they had just left that mark on the door. They all groaned.

“I told you,” Mayes grumbled.

Icarus shook his head. “How does that make sense...?”

Mayes looked around and noticed that by now, the fog had dissipated. “Cool. That was just a minor inconvenience, I guess.”

“I guess it was,” Pandora considered. “Although I think it would probably relate to something else.”

“Perhaps, perhaps. Maybe it’s because we solved that puzzle.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe,” Icarus frowned. “I don’t feel like that’d be the way.”

“Okay, keep going?”

“Should we try to find that place you pointed out?”

“Yes.”

As they stepped around the wall, they saw another golden idol statue in a back corner, just behind where they were standing. This time, it was of a phoenix. They noticed, on the front of it, there was an indent. It appeared to be some kind of slot.

“Crystal?” Mayes guessed.

Pandora examined the slot. “The cyclops eye, maybe.”

“Ooh, try it!” Icarus encouraged.

Pandora carefully unwrapped the crystal, not touching the eye itself, and gingerly holding the parchment as she slid it into the slot. It clicked right into the indent, and the idol began to give off a slight glow. A shimmer went over the phoenix, as if something had been activated. The gemstone fit perfectly.

“We did something!” Icarus announced.

“We did. It’s a phoenix, so like, rebirth, and second life,” Pandora thought.

“But it might not be a good thing.”

“But it might be a good thing.”

“It could be a good thing,” Mayes echoed. “Okay… I don’t mind volunteering.”

The other two stared at them.

“To touch it,” they clarified.

“Yeah, I gathered,” Pandora replied. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“...Okay, be careful.”

“We’re not gonna find anything out if we don’t try.”

“I mean, phoenixes are only ever associated with good things.”

“Yeah, I guess… cyclops makes sense for bad eyes,” Mayes reasoned. “You found a hippocampus that healed you, so,” they shrugged. “Sure.”

“Try it.”

They placed a hand on the statue. Nothing happened.

“Touch the stone?” Pandora suggested.

They did. Nothing happened.

Mayes put their hands up in a shrug. “Okay.”

“It might just be an activated thing,” Icarus considered.

“It’s done something else, perhaps. Or maybe… one of you guys should try it?”

Pandora’s eyes flicked over to them. “You sure?”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s like a… We’re outside a magical room, maybe it’s a magical thing.”

“Okay…” Pandora touched the phoenix. She felt a surge of arcane energy return to her from a pool that was missing, and gasped. “Oh that’s good, that’s good, that feels good! Icarus, you touch it!”

Icarus touched it. The same thing happened. He grinned at his hand, and then touched it again. Once more, the feeling swelled into him. He let out a shout for joy and touched it a third time, and yet again, the idol filled his arcane reserves. He placed his hands on either side of the idol. “You’re my favorite,” he whispered.

Nothing happened the fourth time, but he was still happy.

“Okay, so this is probably worth remembering where it is,” Pandora decided.

Mayes glanced over to their allies. “You guys feeling good?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh yeah!” Icarus laughed.

“I feel ready to go.”

“So much better.”

“Great,” Mayes grinned.

“Okay, good. That was fun. Right, um, so maybe we should like, have another mark on the wall, with a little bird?” Pandora prompted.

“I guess on the other side of the wall for this,” they agreed, leaving a quick illustration of a phoenix on the stone.

Icarus examined Puck. “Do you want to see if maybe you can use your bird to help us travel? You can be our eyes above? I can give you a piggyback.”

“Yeah,” Pandora nodded. “Yeah, that would be good, because I can’t really do much while he’s doing his thing,” she gestured to the bird.

“Yeah, we could try that. It might help us to get through it easier.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay! Hop on,” he grinned.

Pandora got on his back and sent out the kingfisher. “Go on buddy! Off you go.”

They began to walk off, Icarus at the front with Mayes keeping an eye on the back. Through Puck’s eyes, Pandora looked out over the maze. The bird had to travel quite high over the walls to get a proper aerial view, but she saw a handful of turns to avoid where some of the skeletons from earlier were rambling around. They were able to vaguely navigate to the area they hadn’t visited yet, following the path to the center before traveling into uncharted territory. They had no problem, and Pandora tracked out a path through Puck’s eyes to bring them to the center. It took about ten minutes to walk it, but with their eyes in the sky, they didn’t encounter any enemies as they waited for skeletons to rattle past. They were fairly certain they hadn’t set off any traps, either.

The tunnels that led into the middle all had roofs. Puck flew over them, but he wasn’t able to spot anything that might have been lurking inside. They had to put Pandora down so she could crawl through the rubble from earlier, and Icarus let her gently down, tapping her on the shoulder to bring her back.

As they climbed inside, they were immediately met with the sight of the large, crystal looking minotaur, swinging one of its clawed hands and catching Icarus across the shoulder. Thinking quickly, he retaliated with a spell, an eruption of thunder hitting it back. Thin fissures and cracks appeared in its body as it turned and fled once more, disappearing through the nearest tunnel off to the side.

Mayes shook their head, glaring after it. “Those bastards.”

“That guy’s an asshole!” Icarus declared.

“Yeah, right? They just swing at you and run away. Cowards.”

Pandora frowned at the doorway the creature escaped through. “What is with that guy?”

“I don’t know. But at least you hit it,” Mayes nodded to the triton.

“Do we follow it?” Pandora asked.

“We’re going that way anyway,” the other two chorused.

“Okay…”

“If we catch it, we catch it,” Mayes shrugged.

“Minotaur…” Icarus sang. “Come out and play…”

They chuckled, and in they went.

“Okay, so, we’ve not been in this area before,” Icarus reminded them. “We need to be careful of this invisible stuff on the floor, like the traps.”

Pandora tilted her head. “Would you say it’s invisible, or it’s just like… very cleverly disguised?”

“No,” Mayes shook their head. “Because every time I’ve tried to look out for them, people have stepped on them anyway.”

“Yeah, and it doesn’t feel like they press,” Icarus expanded.

“You just go,  _ boop _ .”

“I don’t know if this is gonna do anything,” Pandora cautioned, “But, I can see if it is something invisible. I know- I have a spell that can help me see them.”

“Really?” Icarus grinned.

“Oh, Pandora, you’ve got spells for everything today,” Mayes chuckled.

Pandora nodded, and cast her spell. She felt an energy radiate out from her, reaching out to everything that was close by. She saw little flickers immediately around the place, of small green orbs, nothing like the size of the ones she saw in the street, flickering in and out of her visual. They were a bit see through, and she knew from her studies this meant the orbs were located on the ethereal plane rather than the material one.

However, walking behind Mayes, she saw something else entirely. She saw what looked like a figure, with their arms around Mayes’ neck, hanging onto their back. Their arms were bent over Mayes’ shoulders, and as she cast the spell, the see-through humanoid shape seemed to notice that the spell had been cast. It turned their head around, and she realized half the face on the front of it was missing as if it had been eaten. One dark eye looked at her directly, and brought one of its hands down off Mayes’ shoulder, staring at her.

As she noticed the face, she realized other parts of its body were missing too. There was a gaping hole in its side where a huge chunk had been taken out with teeth. One of the legs was just the top half of the limb, the rest of it missing, and the hand reaching for her was missing several fingers.

Pandora stopped dead in her tracks and screamed.

Mayes quickly turned. “Woah?”

“What’s that on your back?! There’s something on you! There’s, get it off, there’s something on you!”

As Mayes turned around, it became clear that the figure was fully attached. It turned with Mayes and disappeared behind their body, but its head turned back. The fingers came out over Mayes’ shoulders, the eye poking out from behind their neck.

Icarus reached out to steady her. “Pandora?”

“There’s something on Mayes! There’s something on Mayes’ back!”

Mayes gave her a look and began patting down their upper body. “No… I’m good.”

“No, it’s like, it’s got its arms around your neck, and its holding… Oh Gods, it’s awful!”

It was as translucent as the little orbs she had seen, and as she panicked, it occurred to her that it didn’t seem to be on the material plane with them either. But it was definitely attached to Mayes, who was rubbing their shoulders and looking uncomfortable.

“It’s something that’s like, not on… Not on the material plane. It’s like something… Something that used to be here but isn’t, or like, shouldn’t be here- ”

“Can you, can you just stop talking?” Mayes interjected with a grimace. “Can you, can you do that for me?”

“I’m, I’m sorry!”

“Uhh… Okay...” Icarus looked between the two, and turned to Pandora. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sorry, it… Ugh!” Pandora put her face in her hands, peeking through her fingers at it. “Oh Gods, it’s looking at me!”

Icarus looked over to his other teammate. “Mayes?”

They were still rubbing their arms, looking uncomfortable. “Um, what does it… look like?”

Pandora gulped. “Um, this is really gross but its like…” It was definitely a person. It looked like a humanoid figure, likely of the human race, with dark, lank hair, and one dark eye. “It’s a human of some sort but… Bits of it are gone like they’ve been eaten. Like something’s been chewing on its face and its neck, and it's got one really horrible eye just watching me and…” she trailed off, noticing how Mayes was squirming in discomfort. “I’m sorry Mayes! I’m sorry, this is really…”

“Pandora, that doesn’t make any sense,” they shook their head.

“I, I don’t know! It’s just what I’m seeing!”

“She’s not gonna lie about that,” Icarus agreed.

“Yeah, it’s…” Mayes shook their head. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, but… That doesn’t make any sense. Like… come on,” they rubbed their face.

A series of images flashed through Mayes’ head. They saw a bonfire, figures standing around it, and something larger than human silhouetted and skulking around the shadows behind them. But that was it.

Then, they heard screams, but as if in memory, just in the back of their mind. The bonfire flickered out. They saw themselves running through the woods.

Their feet in the dirt.

The trees all around them.

Nothing.

...

Mayes propped themselves up against a wall for a second.

“Mayes, you okay?” Pandora asked tentatively.

“...Yeah.” They rubbed their face. “So many ghost stories back home. Great. Cool.”

“Ghost stories?” Icarus pressed.

“What kind of ghost stories?” Pandora asked.

They shook their head again. “It’s nothing real, they’re just stories.”

“...Okay, but… A lot of stories have basis in truth.”

“And if Pandora can…” Icarus frowned, trailing off.

Pandora shook her head. “I, I’m sorry, but I can see it!”

Mayes’ voice was quieter now. “It doesn’t matter, let’s just keep going.”

Pandora looked at the figure. It didn’t seem to be actively hurting Mayes, but it was watching her. The other arm reached back around Mayes’ shoulders, fixing there, like they were getting a piggyback.

Mayes rolled their shoulders.

Pandora swallowed hard. “It’s not really doing anything, it’s just kind of watching.”

Icarus had been staring off into the maze in thought. “You said you had a back ache.”

“...Yes,” they admitted.

“How long have you had that?” Pandora pressed.

“A few years.”

Icarus took a breath and clapped his hands. “Okay, it’s nothing we can deal with right now- ”

“So we’re gonna keep moving,” Mayes concluded. They mumbled to themselves a bit further, “It’s not a problem,” but Icarus was already talking to Pandora.

“Do you want to go in the front though?”

“Okay,” she agreed.

Pandora gave another suspicious glance at the thing, and then moved forward to try not to think about it. As she passed Mayes by to get to the front, it reached out to touch her, but the hand went through her, giving her the feeling of a slight chill. She jerked back, “Don’t touch! Don’t, no no!”

Icarus gave her a questioning brow.

“It tried to touch me,” she explained.

Icarus made a face, almost gagging. “Ugh!”

She squinted at the creature. “I’m watching you.”

She shimmied around, and went to the front. She turned her eyes away, hoping not to see it any longer. Then, she saw a fork in the path. She recognized the forward path as the one that led straight to the staircase. On the path to the right, there was something painted on the wall, but not in Mayes’ paints. It was chalk, or some other kind of material. An arrow pointing to the right.

“Well, there’s the steps in that direction that Puck saw, and then there’s an arrow on the wall going this way. And I think this is the bit we haven’t seen yet.”

“Then let’s follow it,” Icarus shrugged.

“Let’s follow the arrow,” Mayes agreed.

“Weird that there’s an arrow.”

“Maybe it was another student party that came through here,” Pandora suggested.

“Maybe,” Icarus considered. “Maybe the crystal ox was just like,  _ I might get lost.” _

The joke cleared a bit of the tension, and Pandora gave a little smile. “I don’t know. But we need to go this way.”

Icarus squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back. Icarus turned to give Mayes a friendly bump on the shoulder, but they didn’t react.

“Mayes, are you okay?” Pandora worried.

Their voice was still a bit quiet. “Yeah, let’s just keep going.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah, we got this,” Icarus nodded, giving them an encouraging smile. “Yeah?”

Mayes didn’t look up. “Yeah.”

As they began to travel up the passage, they heard the shuffling of skeletons ahead.

“Might be worth just clearing them out of the way,” Icarus whispered.

“Maybe,” Pandora frowned. “Let’s get rid of them quick.”

They edged around the corner, and Icarus held his holy symbol at the ready. Looking over at them in the dim light of Mayes’ lantern, it was clear they were not the same skeletons they had seen before. They were wearing robes instead of armour, with four of them shuffling in a corner of the maze, bumping against the walls and slowly navigating that way.

“If we hide for a hot second,” Mayes strategized, “I can maybe get some sneak attack potshots off on them.”

“I mean, what I did on the other ones seemed to work very good,” Icarus countered.

“You could try it again, see if they just run away.”

“I don’t really want to do the run away one just yet, I’m feeling a bit drained by that one. But I can just try and use my light on them, but I need to be in their space.”

“I’ll see if I can get some sneak shots on them, and then you can run in?”

“Yeah, okay.”

The trio managed to sneak closer, keeping themselves hidden against a wall. Pandora stayed a bit back, but the skeletons heard the clinking of Icarus’s new scale mail. The four of them lifted their heads, looking in their direction and groaning.

“Okay, I’ll keep them distracted Mayes,” Icarus sighed. “They probably won’t see you.”

All of the skeletons stared at Icarus as Mayes hid behind a corner. Pandora remained further back and tucked around another wall of the maze, holding out her pendulum. Swinging it, the crystal turned icy blue, and she shot out an attack that sailed past.

Mayes pulled around their crossbow, firing off an arrow. The projectile took one of the skeleton’s heads off, and the pile of bones collapsed to the ground inside the robe, going still.

Icarus pulled the shield from his back, holding it defensively in front of him as he moved into their space. Lifting his holy symbol over the shield, he spoke. “Lady Kord, keep us safe.”

Divine light issued forth out of Icarus, and a couple of ribs blasted off the three remaining. Their robes began tearing away, revealing the skeletal bodies beneath. One of them swung at Icarus with a club, but the triton blocked it with ease. As he knocked it back with the shield, another took advantage of the opening to whack into his side.

As the third shuffled towards Mayes, Icarus knocked into it with his shield. Parts of it splintered off, and though it was still moving forwards, it was missing both of its arms. It came around the corner to Mayes, blindly and dumbly swinging its head forward to attack only to crack their skull on the wall. Pandora swung her pendulum again, and the skeleton heard the loud clanging of bells in its mind as its skull was shattered, and the figure collapsed into another pile of robes.

Mayes took a second shot with their crossbow, hitting another skeleton directly into the clavicle. All of the bones shattered at once, leaving only one remaining.

“Come on, you got this Icarus!” Mayes called.

Icarus laughed. “That was great!”

“Thanks!”

Icarus charged forward with the shield, slamming the remaining skeleton into one of the maze walls. It splintered to pieces, collapsing into the ground. “We got it!”

“Good job, everyone,” Pandora smiled.

“Go team,” Mayes agreed.

“That was great. Cool, okay.”

“Great,” Icarus echoed. “So we got rid of them, so that’s one less thing to worry about!”

Suddenly, Pandora became very aware of the sensation of hot breath on the back of her neck. As she turned to look, she saw the large crystal bull. It swung down with a claw, whacking into her before turning to flee once more.

Sick of this thing, Pandora retaliated. Thrusting a hand forward, she sent out a spell. The minotaur was blinded instantly, and it crashed into the nearest wall as it ran. She turned back to the others. “Can’t run away if it can’t see where it’s going.”

Mayes grew a huge grin. “Excellent.”

“Now’s the time, let’s go, let’s go!”

  
“Pandora, great!” Icarus cheered.

The tiefling moved forward, placing a hand on the minotaur as she attempted another spell. As a bit of life energy drained from the creature, she felt her own strength rejuvenated. Stepping back, the minotaur heard the sound of footsteps retreating and swung out with a clawed hand that just caught her arm.

Mayes studied the creature for a second before going in with their katana. Running past, Icarus scooped up one of the clubs from the skeletons on the ground. Shield raised, Icarus moved in front of Pandora defensively. Failing a spell attack of his own, he braced himself.

The minotaur began to run again, and they all made an attempt to hit it as it fled. Icarus landed a crack down one of its horns as it moved past, escaping through the center room, and disappearing through one of the many doorways inside.

“Wiley!” Icarus exclaimed. “That was a really good plan, though.”

“That thing is so annoying,” Mayes griped.

“Yeah but, Pandora, that was genius!”

“For a little bit,” Pandora blushed.

“That was great.”

“And I mean, it should still be blind until it can shake it off.”

“Well let’s continue for now. At least, hopefully, with it blind, it can’t find us again.”

“Maybe.”

They continued on through the maze, with Pandora at the lead. “Oh, careful,” she pointed down to a tripwire as they walked. “Here.”

“Good spot,” Icarus nodded.

They stepped over it. As they approached the back corner, Pandora noticed an invisible glyph on the floor, with another golden statue beyond it. “Oh, okay! So you can see it… They are invisible!” Pandora reported. “It’s a glyph of the floor.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Great!”

“Okay, so, it’s right here…” she marked it out with a stone. Unfortunately, there was no space to jump over it. It was right in front of the idol, preventing them from reaching it. This idol was of a basilisk, a lizard creature with eight legs. “Okay, so…”

“Do you have a feeling we shouldn’t touch that one?” Icarus guessed.

“Maybe yeah. They’re not necessarily… good. And I mean, there’s a transportation glyph on the floor anyway.”

“So it’s entirely tricky,” Mayes concluded.

“Yeah. But like, why would they make it so difficult to get to? I’m wondering if we’re meant to do something to it.”

There didn’t seem to be any gemstone to take, or any slot to place one.

“I don’t really want to be turned to stone,” Pandora worried.

“No,” Mayes agreed. “Or paralyzed.”

Pandora examined the glyph. From her studies, she knew they could be disabled through certain kinds of countermagic, or a careful try with a pair of thieves' tools. “We can get rid of the glyph.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t know the spell, but with thieves’ tools I think, maybe?”

Mayes studied the stone floor. “...I can  _ try _ .”

“Yeah, it’s worth a shot,” Icarus shrugged. He tapped Mayes on the side again, offering another bit of guiding magic.

“Thank you. I will try.”

“And be careful not to like, transport yourself elsewhere,” Pandora warned.

Icarus looked Mayes up and down. “Maybe we should hold on to the back of you? And then, you hold on to me?” he glanced to Pandora. “So that if you get transported, we’ll go with you.”

“Okay,” Pandora nodded.

Mayes gave a slightly less enthusiastic “Okay,” and set about the task.

The three of them held onto each other as Mayes crouched down by it. They were very careful not to brush their hands against it as they wiggled their thieves’ tools under the flagstone, disabling it.

Pandora watched the magic dispel. “Oh, you did it! It’s gone!”

“Good job!” Icarus grinned.

Mayes seemed a bit surprised. “Hell yeah. That’s… yeah. Yeah, awesome.”

“Amazing,” Pandora agreed. “Okay, cool. Now there’s just the statue.”

“An untrustworthy basilisk.”

“Yeah, but,” Icarus tilted his head. “We ought to… look at it properly, right? Just to be sure?”

“Don’t look in its eyes,” Mayes advised.

Icarus stepped forward to investigate the statue. It was, as the others had been, attached to the floor. “I don’t… wanna… touch it… but…”

“But you wanna touch it,” Mayes finished.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Pandora sighed. Suddenly, she looked up. “Does anyone have a mirror? Or something shiny?”

“Shield?” Icarus offered.

Pandora checked, but it wasn’t mirrored on the inside. Icarus breathed on it, trying to polish it, but it didn’t work.

“I was just thinking, if a basilisk looks at itself, it’ll be stopped in its tracks,” Pandora explained.

“It’s already stopped,” Icarus shrugged.

“I know, it’s just… Why are you here?” she interrogated the idol. “I don’t want to touch it!”

“But you kinda do, right?” Icarus grinned.

“I kinda do!” she admitted. “I kinda do…”

Icarus chuckled. “Do we keep trying this? Or do we look around further in this area, first? Maybe we’ll find a mirror.”

“Okay. Can we make a note that it’s here?”

“There’s usually other rooms around these,” Mayes recalled. “So maybe there’s something with something useful in it.”

“Exactly,” Icarus nodded.

“Make a note that it’s here, and we will go from there,” Pandora decided.

“See if we can see anything.”

Mayes marked the spot with their paints, pointing an arrow towards the idol. They continued on, taking the next left turn before coming across another tile without footprints. They moved around it, and found themselves in front of another door.

Icarus tried it, and it was not locked. Inside was a narrow room of broken up sarcophagi with nothing in them. There were no lids, all of them broken open by a few fallen rocks, with a few torches casting shadows over the small space. A fly was buzzing around in the air. It smelled rather musty.

On one wall hung a very large mirror.

Icarus and Pandora pointed in unison. “Mirror!”

“Well there you go,” Mayes nodded.

“Okay,” Pandora took a breath. “Be careful, though.”

As they looked in the mirror, however, they were immediately drawn to the fact that the reflection did not look like the room they were standing in. In the reflection, the sarcophagi were not smashed. There was also a small desk with an iron key, and several papers.

Icarus reached to touch the glass, and his hand went straight through.

“Oh!” Pandora blinked. “Oh… okay.”

Icarus felt as though his arm was simply passing through an open space. He started pulling himself in.

“Careful, careful!” Pandora warned.

“Yeah, don’t worry!”

Pandora stopped him. “Just… if you go through, I don’t know if you can come back.”

“...Hold on to my feet?”

“...Oh… okay… We have some rope?”

They went with the rope. Tying it around himself, Icarus began to climb in. Putting his hands up on the mirror frame, he noted that it was bolted to the wall. “We can’t take this, anyway.”

As he climbed in and stepped to the ground, the rope severed instantly.

“Icarus!” Pandora gasped.

Mayes swore. “Great.”

“Can you still hear us?”

Icarus could not hear them. He began to look around the room, the severed rope trailing behind him. On the desk, he saw the iron key, looking similar to the other one they had found before. He snatched it up with no problem.

There were more papers written in what Pandora had determined to be Abyssal, along with a few scrolls with diagrams on them. He was slowly able to discern that they seemed to be plans about the construction of the maze. The paperwork was very old, crumbling and weak in his fingers, but he was able to carefully unroll them to peek.

Icarus turned around to call out the information to the others, but there was nothing but a blank wall behind him. There was no mirror.

“I…” he trailed off for a moment, blinking as he processed the information. “Aww!”

  
  


On the other side, Pandora frowned. “I don’t know whether to break it or not?”

“Maybe… If we touch the basilisk, he’ll come back?” Mayes hypothesized.

“That’s… That’s a big  _ if _ .”

“That’s a real big  _ if _ ,” Mayes admitted. “But I’m just trying to think that... You guys related it to a mirror, so.”

“I guess?”

The two of them looked around the room, but they didn’t find anything that could be connected to rescuing Icarus from the mirror. The mirror was absolutely affixed to the wall, and pulling it felt like trying to remove a window frame.

  
  


Icarus sighed, taking a moment to think. “Okay.”

Icarus began to make notes of the map. The others could still see him and what he was doing. Mayes put an arm through the mirror, and Icarus turned to see a disembodied hand waving at him through the wall. The triton was a bit surprised at first, and then high-fived the hand.

Mayes grabbed Icarus’s arm to pull him back, but Icarus wouldn’t go through. Instead, his fist slammed into the wall, and he let out a shout. “Agh! Mayes, no!”

Mayes looked at their empty hand and sighed. “Shoot.”

They watched Icarus wince in pain, shaking out his hand.

“Um…” Pandora frowned. “Right. If you… put your hand through, and hold his hand…”

Mayes put in their hand, trying to signal for Icarus to grab it. Icarus kept his hands to himself, shaking his head. He went back to the table, picking up the parchment and pointing at it. “Map!” he mouthed.

Pandora shook her head. “Okay, just take it or something!” She turned back to Mayes. “Can we write on the mirror? Like, with your paints?”

“...Yes?” they replied.

“I don’t know if maybe he’ll be able to see it on his side? I don’t know… But if you can reach through and grab him, I can go and touch the statue and see if anything happens.”

Icarus was still sitting, drawing a replica of the map onto his own paper. It was fairly easy to get all the corners of the maze. He walked back to the hand, handing the map over to Mayes, but they were unable to take the paper back through. It crunched against the wall and fell to the ground.

“I think breaking it will be our last resort,” Pandora decided.

“Yes,” Mayes agreed. “I don’t want Icarus to be lost in the Mirror-verse forever.”

“Well I mean, at the moment, we can’t get him back, so, um…” Pandora rubbed her face in frustration. “This doesn’t quite make sense.”

“No.”

  
  


Icarus suddenly realized there were no doors on his side. He began to search around the floor for any kind of tunnel, but found nothing on the floor. He checked the sarcophagus, pushing the lid off to see if there was anything inside. Though he couldn’t pick up on it, Pandora noticed the slight glimmer of magic fill the room in the mirror as he did so.

On the wall in front of Icarus, appearing through her current ability to see the invisible, something was written in Ancient Errani. It read,  _ eyes on me to exit. _

“Oh, Okay!” Pandora turned to Mayes. “He did that, and now there’s something on the wall. Something invisible.”

“Okay?”

“It’s Ancient Errani, it says,  _ eyes on me to exit _ . But eyes on who?” Suddenly, she gasped. “Eyes on the basilisk?”

“Go stare at it?”

“I could go and look at it and see if it does anything?”

“Sure,” Mayes shrugged. “And I’ll just stare into the mirror.”

“Okay, hold a hand out for him, and be ready to grab him.”

Pandora went to look at the basilisk as Mayes stuck their hand through again, doing their best to stare into Icarus’s eyes. Icarus was frowning at the hand, refusing it. There was a glimmer of magic around the outside of the arm on the wall side, and Icarus walked forward to inspect it. He poked at the seam between the wall and Mayes’s arm, but felt nothing between the wall and Mayes.

Mayes shifted their arm away, and went back to grab Icarus. Icarus relented, putting his hand in theirs to make a point. This time, Mayes pulled a bit more gently, still staring the mirrored Icarus in the eye.

His hand simply pushed against the wall again.

“Is it working?” Pandora called from the hallway.

“No,” Mayes replied.

“Dang it!”

Icarus took his hand back as Pandora returned. “Okay, okay. Eyes on me,” she repeated. “Eyes on who?”

Icarus was starting to get a bit antsy. He was pacing back and forth, looking in the corners and the ceiling.

“Okay, I need a closer look,” Pandora decided. “If you can hold on to me?”

“I can hold your tail,” Mayes offered.

“Okay. I won’t go all the way in, I’ll just sort of poke my head in.”

“Okay. If it severs your tail, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not going that far in! I’m just gonna go like… shoulders.”

“Okay…”

She put her hands through it, leaning the front half of her body inside. She found herself staring directly at the statement on the wall. “Hi!”

Icarus snapped his head over. “Hi.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, great. Fine.”

“Okay, when you opened that sarcophagus, I could see something on the wall. Up there,” she pointed. “It says, eyes on me to exit.”

Icarus looked over to the spot on the wall. “Oh… Okay. If you stare at it, can you get back out? Like, if you just don’t look anywhere else, look at the wall?”

“Okay. And if it works, you do the same thing.”

“Yeah. I need to get out of here.”

“Okay, okay.”

Pandora looked at the wall, and backed out.

Icarus did the same, reversing out as he stared dead ahead. He stepped backwards through the wall, and out the other side.

He let out a deep sigh.

Mayes pat him on the shoulder. “Hey buddy.”

“You okay?” Pandora prompted.

Icarus shook himself to attention. “Yeah! Great, great, good! Yeah.”

“Give a stretch, shake it off,” Mayes advised.

Icarus did twenty squats right there.

“Did you get the key?” Pandora asked.

“Yup, got the key,” he assured her.

“Good job.”

“Yeah, no worries.”

Mayes gave a nod. “Thanks Icarus.”

Pandora looked the triton over. He normally had a bit more of a bubbly personality, but he certainly looked a bit more withdrawn and freaked out than usual. She put her hands on his face to look him in the eye. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. Come on.”

“Yeah,” he smiled, the same steady grin plastered on his face.

“We’re doing this!” Pandora encouraged, dropping her hands. “We can do this.”

“Yeah, I know I know I know, we can. We got this, we got this.”

“Yeah, we’re together again,” Mayes added.

“We’re together again,” Pandora repeated. “Right. I think that basilisk statue is nothing.”

“Worthless,” Mayes agreed.

“Worthless.”

“Just a ruse?” Icarus guessed.

“Basilisk sucks,” Mayes declared with a laugh. “Right, let’s go find those stairs.”

“So, what have we got?” Pandora asked. “Let’s do a quick stock take.”

“Two keys,” Icarus offered.

“Two keys.”

“We used one of the keys.”

“We have two more keys,” Mayes corrected.

“We’ve had three keys,” Pandora revised.

“We’ve had three keys.”

“We’ve had three clues,” Icarus continued. “We’ve got the cypher- I think the book is the cypher?”

“Maybe,” Pandora considered.

“I got some papers from in there, I’ve got the map now,” he rolled out the map he drew in the mirror room. “It looks like when they were making it, it’s all in that language again…”

“Abyssal.”

“Abyssal, yeah.”

“The six principles?” Pandora wondered. “Like maybe… the principles are the idols? Maybe? We’ve seen four of them?”

“Or just that we’re learning on the way,” Mayes shrugged. “To define  _ principle _ .”

“Okay. Is there anything else here that we haven’t looked into? I can get Puck to have another look.”

“Sure, and see if there are any ways to rooms we haven’t checked out yet.”

Pandora sent Puck up, and her expression glazed over for a moment as she saw through his eyes. She could see that they were fairly close to the stairs, and from the stairs she could also see the route back to the hippocampus. She flew Puck around for another five minutes to be sure, and saw a few more skeletons wandering further down the maze, but she didn’t see the crystal bull anywhere. They had been to basically every room, apart from two small archways further back down the maze.

“There’s two little archways we’ve not been into yet,” she reported.

Mayes nodded. “Do you think you can guide us to them?”

“Yeah. Can you carry me?”

“Definitely,” Icarus offered. “Hop on.”

They navigated their way back down through the naos and past the marked teleportation glyphs on the floor they had seen before, making their way to the first archway. It was small, about four feet tall, with a 5x5 foot room inside. Puck peered inside, and all they could see was one sarcophagus with the lid slightly ajar.

“One sarcophagus,” Pandora reported. “The lid is slightly off.”

“Alright, we can have a look,” Icarus shrugged. “Might as well.”

Holding his shield up, he moved in, nudging the lid off with his club. It clattered to the ground on the other side, and they saw a small potion bottle in one corner of the sarcophagus. It looked exactly like a lesser healing potion.

“That’s good!” Pandora smiled.

“Another one,” Mayes approved.

“That’s good to have.”

“See, they put things in that we can use,” Icarus grinned.

“Anything else in here?”

“I don’t think so…”

They looked around, but there was nothing else.

“We should go check out the other one,” Mayes decided.

They continued on, and Pandora continued looking through Puck’s eyes to give directions. As they were moving forward through one of the tunnels, Icarus and Mayes saw something manifest in one junction. It was the shape of a huge iron bull, with four legs and two glowing eyes, nose forward. It appeared just as they turned a corner, charging towards them.

Mayes jumped out of the way, but Icarus couldn’t move like that with Pandora on his shoulders. He lifted a hand and threw forward a magical gust of wind. The gale raced down the passageway, but it didn’t seem to touch the bull. The wind went straight through it.

The bull continued to charge forwards, but Icarus stayed still. It charged right through him and disappeared.

Pandora blinked back to herself. “What’s going on?”

Mayes came out from behind the wall. “That was weird…”

Icarus sighed, and gave Pandora a reassuring pat on the leg. 

“Cool,” Mayes frowned. “Now they’re sending fake bulls after us.”

“Yeah, it was just to try and see if we would stand our ground, I guess,” Icarus guessed.

“Well great. I didn’t.”

“We should keep going,” Pandora advised.

The trio managed to navigate the rest of the way to the final small room they hadn’t seen yet. It looked similar to the room with the screaming sarcophagus from the beginning, a storage space full of broken pots and pieces of overturned furniture. They dug around through the wood and piles of dirt, and managed to find 50 silver pieces and 4 gold pieces, each ancient looking with the same bull face on them.

“There’s the gold pieces,” Mayes declared.

“That’s very nice,” Icarus appraised.

Pandora examined one. “You said we might need these later?”

“Exactly,” Mayes replied. “We still haven’t found a sword, though. Or any other weapons.”

“There’s the club we picked up? That’s a weapon…”

Icarus frowned. “There’s another room, but I don’t know where it is, from here. I kind of ran out of it, blind.”

“Another room?”

“Yeah, where I appeared earlier.”

“Okay…”

“I don’t know if there would be anything in there. Like I said, I didn’t…”

“It’s worth checking out,” Mayes agreed.

“Do you roughly remember which way you came?” Pandora probed.

Icarus shook his head. It had been pitch black.

“Well, if you send Puck up, are there any places that you don’t recognize?” Mayes pressed.

“I can have a look,” Pandora agreed. She took another five minutes or so with Puck darting around on top of the maze. Eventually, he spotted the entrance to a room they hadn’t been to. “I think I found it.”

“Let’s go.”

“On my back,” Icarus offered.

They found the room quickly, having been back and forth through the labyrinth time and time again, and found the room with the cells. It was still pitch black, but with the lantern, Icarus noticed something different. The cells that were closed before, where he had felt skeletal hands reaching for him in the dark, were now all unlocked.

Icarus stopped, letting Pandora down and hovering in the doorway, refusing to enter. “Yeah, this is… the room. Looks like everything that was in here has left, so maybe it's worth looking around?”

“Could those have been the skeletons in the robes?” Pandora wondered.

“It was pitch black. I can’t see in the dark.”

“Okay.”

They did see one skeleton, wearing a red robe and still in a cell. Icarus had blasted it to pieces earlier when the doors had all swung open. Mayes and Pandora searched around, but found nothing else in the room.

“It was worth looking,” Pandora shrugged.

“Might as well,” Icarus agreed, ushering them out. “So we can just head to the stairs now?”

“Does anyone need to visit the hippocampus?” Mayes offered.

“Please,” Pandora replied. “I was going to suggest. Yes please.”

They did. It was a masterful method, Pandora looking ahead and Icarus carrying her while Mayes kept a lookout from behind, and they sped through easily. Pandora warned them about the invisible teleportation glyph by the idol as they approached, and they carefully jumped over.

“It stopped when I touched it twice,” Pandora explained. “Maybe it needs time to recharge?” It had been about two and a half hours since she had last touched it. “If one of you guys want to touch it first?”

“I’m pretty good,” Mayes shrugged. “So if someone needs it more…”

Icarus turned to Pandora. “I think you need it most.”

“Yeah, I’m not doing too good,” she admitted. She touched it, and felt quite a bit better. She touched it again, and felt almost like normal. “One of you guys want to try?”

Icarus touched it once, then twice. He grinned.

“Do you want to try, Mayes?” Pandora offered.

“Why not,” they relented. They touched it, but nothing happened. It was out of charges. They turned back to the others with a shrug. “It’s fine.”

Icarus clapped his hands. “I feel rejuvenated!”

“It’s great, right?” Pandora smiled.

“Yeah! Let’s do this.”

“Stairs,” Mayes agreed. They attached the lantern to their side so they could hold both of their weapons, and the three continued on.

Icarus tied his holy symbol around his neck.

They walked down a short flight of seven steps, and entered a room a similar size to the pronaos as the front. As Pandora had seen before in her vision, there were two minotaur statues filling the space. Each had an open hand.

“One needs a coin and one needs a sword?” Icarus guessed.

Moving closer, they could make out something written on the bottom left of the statue. “ _ I've been tasked to keep guard of the principles within. _ ”

On the right, “ _ Choose a champion for fair combat, I may let you in _ .”

Ahead of them was a large wooden door, ten feet across, and fifteen feet tall, with three keyholes. To the left hand side was an archway, and to the right was a small wooden door.

“Okay, so we’ve got some extra rooms to check out before we deal with these guys,” Mayes surmised.

“The principles within,” Pandora nodded. “It’s the six principles. Okay… so one of them has a coin, and the other has a sword.”

“But we’re still missing the sword.”

“Yeah.”

“So let’s look around in these rooms first,” Icarus advised.

“Exactly. Let’s go… left first,” Mayes decided.

“Left treated us well.”

They entered, and saw another room with desks inside. Pandora recognized various spell components strewn around the room, and it looked like it had been ransacked many times over the years with various items thrown about all over the place. They could see a coil of rope on the table, various leather straps, and many bull masks. They seemed to be theatrical or carnival masks in the shape of a bull head with the six horns of Baphomet, some discarded into corners, some broken up.

They found many other plans and scrolls written in Abyssal, and a few with diagrams. One diagram was immediately recognizable as the illusion of the bull stampeding towards them earlier. Another was of a dark figure dragging something heavy behind them, which they had also seen. A third was of some kind of circular shape with several lines coming off it, Baphomet’s face in the center. All of them were written in Abyssal, and looked as old as the book they had taken.

“Okay… There’s a lot of plans here that have to do with the constructions within the maze,” Pandora summarized. “Like the thing that was dragging something behind it?”

“That’s similar to what I found,” Icarus recalled.

The only thing they found that was not in Abyssal was a scrap of newer parchment in a drawer in one of the desks. It had a picture of a sword, and two sketches of the statues outside. The sword had an arrow pointing to the right handed one.

“The one on the right is the one we need to put the sword in,” Pandora guessed.

“Okay, that makes sense,” Icarus replied. “I think that was the one that said  _ in fair combat _ anyway.”

“Makes sense.”

“And I’d be happy to volunteer for that.”

“Well, let’s see what else we have to do first.”

“We need to find the sword first,” Mayes agreed.

They went to the other side, and the door was locked. Mayes made an attempt to pick the lock, but they couldn’t quite get it.

They leaned back, looking to Icarus. “Could you… do that again?”

The triton grinned. “What, give you a pep talk?” He gave another pat to Mayes’ shoulder, and they felt the slight bit of guiding magic flow into them. “You’ve got this.”

Mayes tried again, and the lock came undone. “Just needed to warm up a little first.”

“You’re doing great,” Pandora encouraged.

Icarus smiled. “You really are.”

The room was about the same size as the other. It looked like there was a passageway to the side that had been collapsed, the walls falling in on it. In the center of the room was a table with candles and oil lamps. Laid out meticulously on it were several scrolls, with an unbroken circle of salt and ashes around the floor.

“Okay, we need to be careful here,” Pandora warned. “This looks like it could be some sort of ritual site, keeping something protected in there, or…”

“Keeping something in,” Icarus finished.

Mayes frowned. “Okay, so that’s… not… Are you saying, we need to look at the scrolls without taking them off the table?”

“Or without breaking the salt line, at least,” Pandora explained.

“Can you see anything in here?” Icarus asked.

She couldn’t see anything invisible in the room, though the spell was wearing off by now. She gave Mayes a side-eye. The unsettling creature on their back had been there for the past hour. Focusing, she checked the scene for the glimmer of magic, and realized the entire display was an illusion. The table, the scrolls, even the circle itself, shimmered faintly with false reality.

“Okay, so this isn’t real,” she reported. “This is an illusion.”

Mayes blinked. “Okay…”

“With what I know about illusions, like… if you pass your hand through it, it’s not necessarily there.”

“Well yeah, it shouldn’t hold up to touch, right?”

“It shouldn’t.”

Icarus poked the club in, and it passed through the table and scrolls. Nothing moved. Scraping the club through the floor, the salt didn’t move.

Pandora scratched her head. “What was it the one with the coin said?”

“Something to do with looking for answers,” Mayes recalled.

“ _ If it’s answers you seek, then gold I will take _ ,” Icarus recited.

Pandora repeated the clue, thinking. “Maybe if we give a gold coin it will reveal the answers?”

“To one of the minatuars?”

“Yeah, the one on the left.”

“Go for it,” Mayes agreed.

“Maybe someone stay in the room?” Pandora strategized.

“Okay, I’ll stay here,” Icarus volunteered.

“And let us know if anything changes?”

“Sure.”

Pandora left the room, and placed a gold coin in the hand of the statue on the left. It sat on the open palm of the statue. “Anything different?”

“Nope,” Icarus called back. “Try another?”

She added another coin. Nothing happened.

“Ask it a question?” Icarus suggested.

Pandora addressed the statue. “Um… What is the illusion of the table hiding in that room?”

The statue did not answer.

Pandora added every coin they had. Nothing happened.

“I think we have to complete the set,” Mayes concluded. “The answers are probably behind the main door.”

They had endless time, so they continued walking around the two rooms for a while. Eventually, Pandora was able to spot a thin, modern looking pipe running along the ceiling of the room with the illusion. She got the feeling it might be a trap, pointing it out to the others.

Mayes found a joint in the pipe, and wriggled around their thieves’ tools to disarm it. They determined the pipe was full of gas, so bent a piece of it at a sharp angle to keep it shut. “Cool, that’s dealt with.”

“Reminded me about the gas from earlier,” Pandora commented. “It’s still kind of weird.”

“I genuinely think that was just to inconvenience us for a little while.”

“Keep it in mind, though.”

“Sure.”

Pandora examined the room one last time. “Okay, so it’s not going to spring a trap on us.”

They returned to the main room. Looking closer at the bottom of the left hand statue, they found a small compartment that suggested a closed drawer, but there was no handle to open it.

Icarus had an idea. “Can you give it one of your swords, Mayes?”

Mayes placed their greek style sword in the hand of the statue to the right as Icarus readied himself. The statue creaked and the stone fell away, as though it was a sand covering, revealing it to be made of metal. Its hand closed around the sword, looking between the three of them and waiting.

Icarus stepped forwards. “I’ll take the challenge.”

The statue bowed to him, and Icarus bowed back.

The statue took up a combat stance.

“Be careful,” Pandora warned.

The iron minotaur statue raised a sword, waiting. Icarus summoned his spiritual weapon, using it to attack. The sword sprang up from behind Icarus’s shield, bouncing off to leave a scarred mark through the iron. He swung in with his club next, leaving a dent on the other side. The statue flourished Mayes’ sword and swung towards the triton twice, but he deflected the blows with his shield.

“Come on Icarus!” Pandora encouraged.

“This is incredibly fun,” he grinned back.

His spiritual weapon deflected off the side of it, but he managed to dent the leg of the statue with the club again. The minotaur swung the greek sword under Icarus’s shield, striking hard into his ribs. It came in for a second blow, but Icarus managed to knock it away with the shield.

“Come on, you’re doing great, you can do it!” Pandora called.

“You got this, Icarus,” Mayes followed.

His spiritual weapon went far wide again, and this time, the club didn’t hit either. The statue managed to knock his club away with the sword, moving in to attack. It brought the sword down, slicing rather deep into his shoulder as Icarus let out a shout. In retaliation, a wave of thunder erupted out of him to hit the statue. The minotaur creaked, all of its joints stiffening with the powerful blow of the spell.

It stopped, and bowed its head to Icarus before returning to its place and holding out the sword. Icarus bowed back.

“You did it!” Pandora cheered.

As Mayes took back their sword, the entire thing turned slowly back into stone. They all heard a clicking sound, and the compartment on the other statue popped open.

“Well done,” Mayes smiled.

Icarus laughed. “Thanks!”

Pandora went to the drawer, reaching inside the compartment. She pulled out a cypher jar, with a middle that could turn to cycle through different symbols and letters. Pandora turned it over in her hands. “Oh, this is so cool!”

Mayes’ eyes went wide. “Can I take a look at that please?”

“Yeah!”

“Thank you.”

“Let’s all have a look…” Examining it, they could all see various letters of the Ancient Errani alphabet, with a few unintelligible symbols that did not seem to be from any language at all. “Okay… Okay, this is cool.”

Icarus tilted his head in thought. “So, this is probably what we need to use through that door? And we got the keys for it…”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Pandora nodded. “It’s just, the illusion on the table…”

“Might have just been a trap.”

“Maybe.”

“Potentially,” Mayes nodded.

“Should we just try the door?” Icarus suggested.

“Yeah, why not.”

“A key each,” he grinned, passing out the keys.

The three of them each took one of the iron keys that they had spent the last four hours trying to find. They slid them into the keyholes, turned them, and heard the clicking of mechanisms all up and down from behind the huge wooden door. It creaked, and swung open, exposing one final room.

There were two large burning braziers in the room. Directly in front of them was a grand altar, with mosaic tiles representing Baphomet. There were two minotaur statues like the ones outside, but smaller, in each corner of the room. Finally, there were two small rooms to either end, with six columns in the center of the room.

“Six principles, six columns,” Pandora observed.

They walked inside the room, and behind them, they heard hooves clicking on the tiles. Turning around, they saw at the top of the stairs, entering the room, the crystal minotaur. The light from the two braziers glinted off it, throwing pink and purple light through the white crystal that made up its body. It was now carrying a great axe, standing in the doorway menacingly. Some of the dust on the floor around it dispersed as it breathed through large, crystal nostrils.

“Oh hey, big boy,” Mayes grinned.

Icarus rolled his shoulders. “You ready to play?”

“I think this is probably the last thing we are going to have to do, so it’s time to bring out the big guns,” Pandora advised.

Reaching into her pouch, she pulled out a vial of water. Taking the cork off, she brought a hand up to bring the water over herself. The water turned red as it crystalized over her, and she moved back defensively.

The minotaur looked between the three of them, great axe in hand, and ran toward Icarus. The triton brought up his shield to deflect the axe, and the minotaur turned down its head to gore him with its horns. Icarus moved fast, pushing the creature away with the shield once more.

Mayes eyed the creature for a moment, and moved behind it to position themselves before striking in with both blades. Icarus’s spiritual weapon appeared again as Icarus swung with his club, just managing to hit while the spiritual weapon levied itself by the triton’s head. As the two of them made attacks, shards of crystal exploded off it where they made contact. The miniature projectiles shot out, digging into their arms like tiny needles.

Puck flew off Pandora’s shoulder, dodging the shards and swooping around the creature’s head. The tiefling ran in, placing a hand on the minotaur as she had before, transferring its life energy into her. She moved to back away quickly as it tried and failed to swipe back.

The creature was surrounded, and it swung with its great axe into Mayes. They managed to jump back to avoid the worst of it, but the weapon still scratched into them as the minotaur bent down to ram into Icarus, who once again deflected the horns away with his shield. Mayes landed another strike on it with one of their swords, but the shards blew back in their face once more, a counterattack twice as powerful.

Realizing that close range attacks may be dangerous, Icarus retreated to let his spiritual weapon move in. The sword swung past as the bull shook its head around, Puck still flying around it.

Pandora held out her hands and sent out a spell. A fire exploded from her hands, shaping itself carefully around Mayes and Puck to engulf the minotaur.

“Thanks Pandora!” Mayes called.

“It’s okay!”

The flaming minotaur swung its great axe at Mayes again, slicing into them even as they jumped back. Next, the creature ran at Pandora. As it stomped towards her, she waved her hands to draw a shield in the air. Its horns smashed into it.

“Good job!” Icarus called.

Mayes, having taken quite a few blows, downed a stronger healing potion before backing away. They pulled out their crossbow, and took a shot. The bolt tore an impressive chunk out of it, and the shards bounced safely off of Pandora’s shield.

“Try not to hit it with melee!” Icarus advised. Touching his holy symbol, he shot out another spell, striking the back of it as it bared down on Pandora. The crackle of radiant energy passed over the creature.

Pandora tried to back up, but the creature swung into her again. Her shield faded by now, the blow hit. She allowed the red crystals of ice she had conjured before to explode out in a counterattack, stabbing into it as the minotaur's own crystals had earlier.

“Oh look, she can do it too,” Mayes grinned as Icarus laughed.

Pandora moved further back, swinging her pendulum as a sickly green bolt shot out of it and struck into the creature. Unfortunately, the poisonous blow seemed to deflect easily off of its body.

“Dangit! It cannot be poisoned!” she reported.

The creature turned to Icarus.

“Come and have a go!” he goaded.

The creature did, slamming into the triton with its horns before swinging its great axe into his side. Mayes hid behind a pillar, trying and failing to take another shot as Icarus chugged a potion of his own.

“When I attacked it earlier, thunder seemed to really hurt it!” Icarus shouted out. “So if you’ve got anything like that…!”

He let out another blast, and thunderous energy washed over it as more cracks appeared in the crystal, blasted chunks away. Icarus dead-eyed it, grinning.

Puck was still zipping around its head. Pandora tried to command her familiar to deliver a spell for her, but it was too difficult for the bird to find an opening. The minotaur went in to attack Icarus again, but this time, he was able to bring up his shield and defend himself.

“Don’t think so,” he taunted.

The creature used the opening to swing in with its axe, landing an impressive blow in to slash across his thigh. Mayes shot another crossbow into it, causing more cracks to appear in the crystal as they hid again.

Icarus gripped his wounds, allowing a bit of his own healing magic to steady him. “Pull yourself together, you got this.”

Divine light burst out of the holy symbol on his neck, exploding out to enrobe the minotaur. He was trying to keep its attention, and prevent it from attacking the others.

Puck darted around the creature, distracting it as Pandora pulled a packet of powder from her bag. Flinging it on the ground, threw out her hands towards the minotaur. “Burn. Burn!”

A ball of fire started inside the crystal, making it glow as pink and purple and white as light started to shine out of it. The entire thing suddenly exploded outwards like glass. They shielded themselves behind pillars as the pieces scattered across the entire room.

The minotaur was no more.

“Pandora!” Icarus beamed. He ran over to the tiefling, grabbing her by the waist to spin her around in excitement. “That was amazing!”

“I did it, I did it!” she laughed.

“You complain about not hitting things,” Mayes teased. “That was incredible.”

“That’s why you don’t hit things,” Icarus joked. “You need to give us a chance to do anything!”

Pandora was still shocked. “That was so cool!”

“That was so cool!”

“... _ I’m _ so cool!”

“You’re so cool!”

“You are,” Mayes grinned.

“Oh my Gods, you guys were amazing,” Pandora sighed.

“So were you!” Icarus countered.

“We did it!”

Puck flew around them happily histling. Pandora took him down from the air, holding the bird in her hands and hugging him close as he nuzzled into her. “Hey buddy! You were so helpful, you were so good!”

“Okay, so, let’s look around?” Icarus suggested.

“Check out these rooms,” Mayes agreed.

Pandora nodded. “Now we can have a look properly in here. Everyone okay? Everyone good?”

“I am  _ buzzed _ right now,” Icarus grinned.

“Okay, okay, let’s have a look around.”

“Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. Try the left room first? That always works out.”

“Okay.”

“Sure thing,” Mayes followed.

They headed into the left room, and then the right. They found a handful of gemstones, more gold coins with the minotaur faces on them, and a strange liquid in a potion bottle glowing dark purple. They gathered up the items between the scattered sarcophagi until there was nothing else left, and returned to the main room.

“Okay, so now we’ve got to work out these six principles, which have got to be…” Icarus gestured to the pillars.

“I guess, start looking at the six pillars, see if the symbols match up,” Mayes agreed.

They looked at the six pillars, the gentle flickering light of the two braziers behind them. Carefully picking their way around the shards of crystal on the floor, they could see symbols of various lengths on each pillar.

“Okay, so we need to translate whatever these words are on each pillar with the cypher,” Pandora summarized.

“We can do that,” Icarus nodded. “Let’s give it a go.”

Between Pandora and Icarus’s knowledge of Ancient Errani and Mayes’ understanding of cyphers and secret languages, they were able to identify the symbols very fast, stringing together the letters until they were able to understand each word individually.

Across the six pillars, the words read,  _ “Unity, Morality, Preparation, Cooperation, Obedience, and Initiative.” _

They remembered these words from their first day at Delphos Academy, read out to them in an assembly for the students beginning that year, as the six principles of warfare.

“Of course, it’s the six principles of warfare,” Pandora smiled.

“Just comes right back around on you, huh?” Mayes grinned. “Day one, to your last day. Gotta keep it in mind.”

“Well yeah, I think we did that,” Icarus chuckled.

“Okay, so that’s that,” Pandora declared. “The principles are holding the place up.”

“And we used all of them to get here.”

“I guess, yeah.”

“Together!”

“Go team,” Mayes nodded.

They examined the altar. Unlike the pillars themselves, the altar looked as ancient as a lot of the other things in the labyrinth. The stone was crumbling, cracked, and dirty, with some nasty looking dark stains on top of it. The tiles around it on the floor looked to match the lines of the circular diagram Icarus had seen before, and it gave off the impression of an incomplete piece of something.

“This might not be… part of it,” Icarus hypothesized. “It might just be from what’s been left. I feel like this was just part of…”

“The architecture,” Mayes finished.

“This was just always here,” Pandora agreed.

“So, do we, just…” Icarus tilted his head in confusion. “Do we leave?”

“Walk back and see if the door is open?” Mayes suggested.

“I can send Puck,” Pandora offered.

As they turned around, they saw something at the top of the staircase they entered through. Coming into existence was a small glowing ball of white light, bobbing there in the air.

“Okay…”

“Checkpoint,” Mayes shrugged. “We finished.”

“Maybe…”

They moved forward, and Icarus reached out to touch it. The ball moved out of reach, floating further up the stairs. “Oh.”

“You want us to follow?”

“Let’s give it a go.”

“Okay.”

They followed the light, the glowing orb bobbing gently along through the corridors of the labyrinth. They passed a couple of the remaining skeletons, but they were now frozen and unmoving in space, completely paralyzed as they passed safely through the maze. The squares they had marked before were now easily visible, the pit traps opened to reveal the holes below. They were able to easily pass without getting hurt, and the light brought them back through the shortest path to the exit.

They made it back out to the pronaos at the front, and saw that the flames blocking the first entrance had completely stopped.

“Yes!” Icarus cheered.

“We did it!” Pandora smiled.

Mayes crossed their arms and nodded approvingly. “Job well done.”

Icarus beamed. “We got out!”

Outside, through the archway, they saw a carriage with their three mentors leaning against it, waiting. Beyond that was what they couldn’t see earlier, the entrance to the place, a massive stone archway looking out at the water. Daylight was pouring in.

Their mentors saw them coming, and waved.

“You did it!” one called.

“We did it!” Pandora replied.

“You did, we’re so proud of you. Come on, let’s get you out of this place. Please, get into the carriage, take a sit down. I’m sure you need a break.”

All three of the mentors looked impressed.

“I’m sorry we have to do this to you…”

The three students disappeared into darkness again. They couldn’t see anything else.

Icarus felt around for Lorakai. His mentor took his hand and squeezed it slightly.

As they sat comfortably in the carriage, it began turning and rolling back out, back up the path, and back towards Delphos Academy.

  
  



	5. High Expectations, Episode Five

The journey took a few hours, as it had before. Their mentors made it clear they weren't going to talk about their exam performance just yet, urging them to relax as they made idle chit chat. They made their way back to Erran, the cart rolling over the familiar flagstone streets. Outside of Delphos Academy, the darkness was dropped once more.

“You know, you could have done that the moment we got into the city again,” Icarus teased. “I’ve seen the city quite a few times.”

“It’s less fun that way,” Lorakai replied, looking quite amused.

“Alright,” Icarus grinned, turning to the others. “I don’t know about you guys, but I really want to hit up the infirmary.”

“Yeah, you guys got pretty beat,” Pandora agreed.

Mayes took stock of themselves. “Yeah, we should get patched up.”

Alexander gave them a nod. “I think that’s a very good idea. Take your time, go to the infirmary, rest tonight, and the three of us will talk over everything that you did today. Tomorrow, we will find you, and discuss that.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t worry. You all did well. So, go on. Go get rested up.”

“Great! See you later,” Icarus smiled.

Mayes gave the mentors a little salute as the teachers left, and the trio of students were left outside on the steps of Delphos Academy once again.

Icarus sighed. “I got  _ gored _ .”

Pandora frowned. “Yeah, you did.”

“You really did,” Mayes echoed.

“Let’s go get that looked at.”

“Yeah, please,” Icarus agreed.

“We’re both covered in… crystal scars,” Mayes observed.

“Yeah, I don’t really want to get scars.”

“No.”

“Let’s get this sorted.”

They headed through the Academy and out into the main courtyard. There were about twelve buildings around the large courtyard, with doors to get into all of the different buildings. They crossed to one of the larger buildings that held the infirmary, where many of the House Anterus students did apprenticeships over their years at the school, learning how to take care of others. Kyria, one of the students who had fought with them against the carrion crawlers, was working at the desk.

“Kyria!” Icarus waved in greeting.

She looked up and waved. “Hi!”

“It’s good to see you,” Pandora smiled.

“It’s good to see you three,” she replied. “You… I mean, you look worse for wear, but…”

“Could do with getting patched up,” Icarus agreed. “How have you been?”

“I’m okay, I’m okay… Please, come on in, let me find you some beds…”

“Sure.”

“Thanks,” Mayes nodded.

She led them through a small entrance area into a larger chamber with dozens of beds, with smaller rooms off to the side for people who needed more privacy. Looking them over quickly, she brought them to one small corner with three beds, drawing a curtain across to separate the trio from the other cots.

“Okay, who needs attending to?”

“These two,” Pandora pointed to the others as Mayes pointed to Icarus.

Kyria hurried over. “Yeah, okay, um… Just, sit down, and, I guess… Strip off, show me the wound?”

Icarus stripped off his armour, lifting up his chiton to reveal the wound.

She blushed quite deeply. “Oh, um… Okay, one second…”

She tended to his wounds, slowly and gently. Starting with a salve that had been mixed up, the medicine spread a cool, refreshing feeling over the wound.

He giggled a bit when she touched the area near the gills on his sides. “No no, not there!”

“Oh, sorry!” she giggled back. She was quite visibly nervous, unable to look him in the eye. She moved on to a bit of healing magic, placing both palms around the wound as it slowly began knitting back together. The scars from the crystals formed back until there was nothing left of them, while the larger wound looked as though about four weeks of time had passed.

“You’re incredible,” Icarus sighed, feeling significantly better. “That felt amazing.”

“You’re so talented,” Pandora agreed.

Kyria smiled. “Thank you. Anything to help you. And don’t worry,” she glanced over to Mayes, “I haven’t forgotten about you.”

“It’s fine,” Mayes shrugged. “Don’t worry.”

Kyria was a bit more contained as she treated Mayes, doing the same process once more as the cuts from the shards of crystal knit themselves together, leaving Mayes with just a handful of bruises.

“Thanks Kyria,” Pandora smiled.

“It’s okay!”

Icarus stretched out. “That feels so, so much better.”

“Really needed that,” Mayes agreed.

“I’m glad I could help you,” Kyria blushed. “Have you just done… your exam?”

“Part one.”

“Yeah,” Pandora nodded. “I guess we’re not allowed to say much, but… yeah, we did the first part.”

Kyria beamed. “Wow! Can you… Did they say if it went well?”

“We don’t know,” Icarus admitted.

“I mean, we got out,” Pandora shrugged.

“I think it went well,” Mayes decided.

“Hope so.”

“Well you’re in one piece,” Kyria smiled. “Not like everybody comes out in one piece, so.”

“Yeah, thanks to you,” Icarus smiled back. “Patching me up.”

Kyria fidgeted. “Well, you know, I do my best. I don’t think I’m ready for my final exam or anything, but…”

“With what you did just now, I would say that you are,” Pandora countered.

“Maybe if it was in an infirmary,” Kyria laughed.

“Well, everyone needs good support on their team,” Icarus countered.

“Exactly,” Pandora agreed. “We could have used you in there.”

Kyria brightened. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, like… Trying not to give too much away, but I touched something I shouldn’t have, and it knocked me right out.”

“Oh! Well, I guess you could do with an Anterus student in your little gang,” she blushed. “I’m getting ahead of myself, I have other people to see…”

“No, of course.”

“These beds are yours for as long as you need them today. Please rest up, and, I’ll be back around… later?”

Icarus smiled at her. “Sure, we’ll see you in a bit. Thanks again.”

“Yeah…” she blushed a bit more, and then turned to disappear.

“I think she likes you,” Pandora whispered.

Icarus smiled. “Yeah, she’s really nice.”

“She’s sweet.”

From their corner of the infirmary, they saw a curtain get drawn back as another student came out with a faculty member who worked in the infirmary. In a bed, looking unconscious or unmoving, was another student. The student nurse and the faculty member looked rather worried, hurrying to pull across the curtain and move to the other end of the infirmary.

Mayes frowned. “What do you think that’s about?”

“Don’t know,” Pandora replied.

Icarus tilted his head. “Maybe another… I don’t know, quite a few people do their final exams around this time, don’t they?”

“I guess so,” Mayes replied. “Maybe they didn’t do so well.”

“I hope they’re okay,” Pandora worried.

“Yeah.”

“They’re in good hands here,” Icarus assured them. “Especially with people as talented as Kyria around.”

Pandora looked over the others. “You guys should rest up. You took quite a beating in there.”

“Yeah… It’d be nice to kind of wind down, after all that,” Mayes admitted.

“That was fun though, right?” Icarus grinned.

“It was fun.”

“That was really cool. The way you took it out at the end, Pandora, I’m stil...”

“I still can’t believe it myself,” she admitted.

“You’re powerful.”

“...Sometimes.”

“No, quite a lot of the time,” Icarus countered. “I just think you need to give yourself more props.”

“Yeah, you had stuff that came in handy in like… very particular situations that we wouldn’t have been able to do anything about without you there,” Mayes continued.

“Just lucky that those particular situations came up, I guess,” she deflected. “But you guys are amazing.”

“So are you.”

“And I’m very honored to be on your team.”

Icarus smiled. “Yeah, me too. I’m glad to have you guys on my team. It seems… weird, that we met like, what… two… three days ago?”

“...Yeah,” Pandora realized.

“And now I’m doing my final exam with you.”

Pandora frowned. “I feel really bad saying this, but like, I don’t know anything about you guys.”

“No, I don’t think any of us really know that much about each other,” Mayes grinned.

“No,” Icarus agreed.

“Maybe that would be a good idea?” Pandora suggested. “To find out? If we are working together?”

“Yeah, we’re friends now, right? That's what we should do, get to know each other properly.”

“Talk about friend things,” Mayes nodded. “Like…” they squinted between the other two, their voice turning serious. “What’s your favorite color?”

Icarus laughed. “Is that what friends do?”

“Yeah. You know, the really intense, personal questions, that friends would know about each other,” Mayes teased, leaning closer to interrogate. “What’s your favorite color, Icarus?”

Icarus leaned slightly back as Mayes stared him down. “...I don’t know, every single color has left my mind right now.”

“What are colors?” Pandora chuckled.

“You asked it with such intensity, you scared away the answers.”

“Yeah,” Mayes replied. They bounced their eyebrows up and down a few times, still staring straight at Icarus. “I like purple.”

Icarus cracked up, bending over to catch his breath.

“That was very intense,” Pandora laughed.

Icarus took a deep breath before coming back up. “I like gold.”

“That’s a good color on you,” Mayes approved.

“Thanks.”

Two heads turned to Pandora expectantly.

“Oh, I like so many colors,” she thought. “Like… the blue that you get, in the ocean? That kind of blue.”

“Yeah, that is very good,” Icarus agreed.

“That’s real pretty,” Mayes followed.

“We should go to the ocean.”

“We should,” Mayes agreed. “Hang out at the beach.”

_ “Yes.” _

“That would be nice,” Pandora mused. “Maybe we could do that and get to know more about each other.”

“That sounds good.”

“Because then we will work better as a team. Like, not that we don’t already, but we could be even better, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, and as well,” Mayes continued, “We need to know… I know what you guys are really good at, but it would be good to know each other’s…”

“Weaknesses?” Icarus supplied.

“Weaknesses, I guess, so that we can try and compensate for each other. Help each other out.”

“That’s a good idea,” Pandora agreed.

“We got each other’s backs,” Icarus nodded.

Mayes gave the triton a nudge and a grin. “Yeah.”

Icarus smiled back. “Speaking of, how is your back?”

The grin quickly disappeared. “...Same as always.”

“Yeah? Okay.”

“...It’s fine.”

Icarus didn’t press. “Yeah, I know.”

Pandora looked a bit sheepish.

Icarus moved on. “Anyway. No more of that, I am  _ tired,” _ he sang.

“Same,” Mayes agreed.

“I’m gonna go to sleep.”

“Take a nap,” Pandora urged.

Icarus leaned back in the bed. “I love having naps in the middle of the day, this is the place.”

The three of them laid down for a while, making idle chit chat amongst themselves, and dozing off.

At one point, the main door to the infirmary was thrown open, and Kyria came back into the larger area from the desk, waving at some of the faculty. “Can I get some help over here?”

A few of them stood from where they were working, rushing to the outside door. The door swung closed again, and it was quiet for a moment before both of the doors opened to make more room. One of the faculty members moved their hands in an incantation, and they could no longer see what was happening. Pandora recognized it as a minor illusion spell, as they continued to hear movement throughout the infirmary.

“...They don’t want us to see something,” Pandora murmured.

“That can’t be good,” Icarus frowned.

Mayes peered over. “No.”

“Did you see how many of them rushed over?” Pandora worried. They weren’t the only ones curious. A few other students in beds had sat up, looking around. “I think they’ve just made it so that we can’t see what they don’t want us to see.”

“Right, right, okay. That makes sense,” Icarus nodded. They saw a few of the curtains move as people rushed through, and another private door down at the end opened before closing after itself. “Hope whoever it is is alright.”

“Yeah, I wonder if it was someone taking their final exams.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m sure they’re in good hands.”

As the main doors swung back closed, they could see Kyria still standing there. She sighed, looking shaken, before someone led her away. Pandora followed her, and found her sitting at the main desk again.

“Kyria?”

“Hi.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I can… I’m fine,” she shrugged. “I’m trained for this sort of thing. It’s just, kind of rough sometimes, when you see someone in a real bad state.”

“Someone you knew?”

“Yeah,” she admitted.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want, but...”

Pandora went in for a hug. Kyria allowed it to happen for a moment before hugging back tightly. She was rather short, maybe 5’3”, so she was sort of hugging around Pandora’s waist.

“I’m not supposed to talk about it, so I won’t,” Kyria explained. “Trying to be good.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s okay.”

Kyria pulled back. “Are you guys feeling better?”

“I’m doing okay. I didn’t really get hit back there, it’s the other two who… took the beating.”

“You’re really impressive.”

“Not really, just lucky.”

“No no,” Kyria pressed. “You’re really impressive, I’ve seen you.”

Pandora blushed. “It’s nothing.”

“Sure,  _ it’s nothing _ ,” she teased.

“Well… I’m here if you want to talk about anything, but, I know you’re probably not allowed to, so… Just here if you want a hug.”

Kyria smiled. “You too. Anytime.”

“Yeah. Anytime.”

Kyria seemed a bit more herself after that. Pandora returned to the others.

The three of them relaxed for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening before they peeled off. Icarus said his goodbyes and waved to Kyria on his way. “See you later!”

Her head shot up. “Bye!”

“Thank you again!”

“Thank you…”

Icarus returned to his room. He sat down to study the coin he won for awhile, and though it seemed like a regular coin, he already knew there was something arcane about it. Flipping it through his fingers, he discovered it was quite a unique creation, known as a Mesmerizing Coin. It seemed to reflect the light in an unnatural way, and was quite literally mesmerizing to look at. He could definitely distract someone with it.

Satisfied, he moved on to the shield he had found in one of the sarcophagi. It was a round hoplite shield with a stud in the center, a bow and arrow carved into the stud. He spent a bit of time with it, and felt good about his ability to defend himself, until he felt a strange and unexpected surge of magical connection to the item that he couldn’t seem to shake.

Mayes relaxed as well, winding down for the evening as Pandora read and studied elsewhere. The three of them spent their evening as they liked, and slept soundly through the night.

  
  


Morning came. Pandora liked to read in bed in the morning, while Mayes set out to do a bit of gardening. Icarus was up for a 5:00am jog, and headed over to the training pitch with his sword and shield afterwards. It was fairly quiet at that time, and he remained out there for a while as a couple of other people jogged by, training, and getting a head start on their morning.

It was there where Lorakai found him. He came out in the morning looking for him, expecting to find his student there. He walked up behind Icarus, wearing basic training leather armour. “Boo.”

Icarus grinned. “Morning. Look at you, being up early.”

“Morning, kid. I know, look at you being up early.”

“I’m always up early.”

“Mm,” he raised a brow.

Icarus feigned offense. “Wow.”

“No, I still remember those evenings when you were like, what, 17? You would stay up until three in the morning.  _ I’ll be up in the morning, I swear I’ll be up in the morning,” _ he mimicked.

Icarus stifled a smile. “Okay…”

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

“Well you forget everything else. Old man.”

Lorakai raised another brow, this time in challenge. “Do you wanna  _ go?” _

“Yeah, do you know what, yeah.”

Lorakai blinked, a bit surprised. “Well… Okay. Fine, I’ll spar with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Hang on, just give me a sec…”

“Sure.”

Lorakai walked over to the side of the training area, and put his cane down. He stretched out slightly, groaning a bit. He took out his sword, an identical copy of Icarus’s spiritual weapon, right down to the same dents and scratches in the handle. “Okay, I’m not that old. I can do this.”

“Mm, we’ll see,” Icarus grinned.

“Okay, then shall we? And I can talk to you about how you did yesterday.”

“Sounds good,” Icarus raised his shield, holding out a shortsword.

Lorakai took his position twenty feet away, reading his own sword. Icarus bowed to his mentor, and Lorakai bowed back.

“So how did you think you did yesterday?” Lorakai lifted his sword and swung at his student, whacking into his side.

“Honestly feel like I could have done a lot better,” Icarus admitted.

Lorakai brought his sword down, feigning to one side before hitting the other, and Icarus used the opening to strike. Lorakai was still speedy, and quite dexterous even with his brass leg, but not quite as speedy as he used to be.

“What do you think you could have done better at?” Lorakai probed.

Icarus deflected one of his blows, but swung too wide on the counterstrike. “Keeping my cool.”

“...Well there’s that. You doing okay?”

The two blades clashed together. Lorakai clanged into his shield as Icarus knocked the opposing blade away.

Lorakai met his eye to repeat himself. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. You know I could see everything, right?”

Icarus grimaced. “...No.”

Lorakai gave him a half apologetic smile, raising up his sword again. “Those bracelets were scrying bracelets. We were watching everything you were doing.”

“Agh… Great, great, that’s…” Even as Icarus was distracted by the information, he was able to bring up his shield and knock Lorakai’s sword away. “Great. That’s embarrassing.”

“Don’t be, we’ve gotta grade you somehow.”

Icarus lunged in, and Lorakai expertly deflected.

“Yeah, well… Still. Should have a handle on that, you know? It’s been years.”

_ “It’s been years _ , yeah, sure, kid.” Lorakai took advantage of the triton’s momentary lapse, hitting the flat of his blade against Icarus’s side again.

“Agh! Right in the gills!,” he cringed.

“Sorry. Look… you can’t use  _ it’s been years _ as an excuse, okay? When… you go through something like that… You can’t just expect to get over it by not thinking about it.”

Icarus tried to strike again, and Lorakai knocked his arm away. “You remember what it was like, after we first met, right?” he continued.

“Yeah,” Icarus admitted.

“What a mess I was? When I was staying in the temple with you?”

“Well yeah, you just lost your leg, and eye.”

“Yeah, but, I got over it. But I didn’t get over it by just pretending it hadn’t happened.”

Lorakai made another swing, but his heart wasn’t in it anymore, and Icarus easily deflected. Icarus was still in it though, and he slid his sword to whack against the other man’s thigh.

_ “Oof,” L _ orakai cleared his throat.

“Yeah, well, I was seven. I’m twenty-four now,” Icarus reasoned.

“...That doesn’t matter, what…? You think that much time is just gonna make it all go away?”

“...I should be able to deal with it better than that.”

Lorakai dropped his sword down into the sand. “You know, we’ve talked about it quite a lot over the years, but you haven’t… you haven’t faced it, yet. And, at some point, you’re gonna have to. I… I cannot say how… unhappy I was, watching, to see that of the three of you that happened to you. But, you coped. Better than I thought you would. Maybe it’s time you consider… facing it head on.”

“How?”

“Same way you face anything else head on. Bit of practice.”

Icarus took another swing.

Lorakai stepped aside, waggling a finger at him. “Ah. Talking now.”

“No, you promised you’d train.”

Lorakai picked up his sword again. “Okay.”

He took a weak swing, not even trying to hit his opponent.

Icarus just stared back.

“You know…” Lorakai continued, “I heard you, as well, when Alexander was talking to you in the tavern, saying you don’t really know what you wanna do with yourself… You know I’ve always advocated that it doesn’t matter, right, but… It’s also something you need to think about. It’s gonna be your future soon.”

“I know.”

“Seeing as you passed your first task…”

“I did?”

Lorakai grinned. “Of course you did. Look at the three of you, all three of you passed, flying colors.”

Icarus beamed, throwing his head back in relief. “That’s great.”

“But perhaps you could do with… relying on your teammates a little better. You… You’re always there for them, and then you expect to have to be there for yourself and not get any help from anyone else, which is… you, in a nutshell.”

Icarus chuckled a bit.

“I’m proud of you, okay?” Lorakai continued. There was a bit of a pause before he pressed on. “I’m supposed to give you proper feedback on all the things you did that were good, and all the things you did that were bad, but… You know, I saw you handle those undead. And I don’t think you’ve handled anything like that before. I know you can do better than that- ”

“You think?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen people with that…” he waved a hand. “Your sort of divine magic, just destroy them in a blow. Which I’m sure you could. But I get that you haven’t faced anything like that before. So, creative, I like it. You’re perceptive, good with the puzzles… What can I say, you knew you were great. You didn’t go down once. So… yeah. I’m proud of you. And, I was actually thinking…”

“That’s dangerous,” Icarus grinned.

“Ha ha ha,” Lorakai landed another blow on Icarus’s side. “That perhaps…” he caught his own sword in his hand, and held it out to Icarus. “It’s time I passed this on.”

Icarus stared for a moment. “...What?”

“...I saw your spiritual weapon.”

Icarus blushed a bit. “Yeah, well, you mean a lot to me.”

“Don’t get sappy about it.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Just take the sword.”

Icarus made a final lunge.

Lorakai sidestepped. “Wow. You’d strike an old man, unarmed?”

Icarus chuckled, and took the sword. He stepped in to hug his guardian, and Lorakai brought him against his chest with one arm, ruffling his hair with the other.

Icarus pushed back. “Thanks.”

“Least I can do. Just… consider it a gift, for passing your first task. Don’t expect one every time,” he warned.

“Why not? I mean, you gave me my glaive when I got into the Academy, you’ve given me this now…”

“Well, whatever. It’s nothing.”

Icarus grinned. “Thanks.”

“Whatever you do after this, I’m gonna miss you around.”

“I don’t think I’ll be going far.”

“I’m not letting you stay in the Academy. You think I’m letting you move back into my room?”

Icarus was a bit taken aback. “I… What?”

“You’re not a kid anymore!”

“So?”

“Get your own place!” Lorakai chided. “That’s my space. I can’t bring a lady friend home, if you’re just gonna be there in the other room.”

Icarus blinked. “Lady friends?”

“I, I didn’t for years, when you were living with me,” Lorakai defended.

Icarus wasn’t sure what to think about Lorakai having  _ lady friends _ , and his shock was quiet plain on his face. “You don’t… Do you have lady friends?”

“Yeah! Do you think I’m gonna stay single for the rest of my life?”

“I mean, it’s just, something… I never thought about? I guess?”

Lorakai shrugged. “I’m not  _ that _ bad looking.”

“I never said- ! I didn’t say that.”

“I’ll take that sword back,” he warned.

Icarus held the weapon defensively. “No!”

Lorakai shoved him a bit. “I’m proud of you, kid. Listen… You’ve got some time before your next task. But, think on those things that… you struggled with. And think about how you’re gonna cope with them. And don’t... feel bad... for how you reacted, okay?”

“...Okay.”

“It’s how you deal with trauma like that that defines you. Not what you went through.”

Icarus nodded. “Sure.”

“I’ll see you later. I’m exhausted. And I need to get a sword,” he realized. He went over to his walking stick, leaning a bit heavier on the cane as he walked back inside.

  
  


Mayes was out in the gardens. Before long, they heard footsteps coming up behind them.

“Morning.”

“Oh, you heard me,” Citra sighed, frowning a bit.

“Of course.”

“How are you feeling today?”

“Great.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve been out here for a few hours now.”

“Well… yeah. Was a lot of stuff we did yesterday,” Mayes reasoned. “I just figured I’d… relax out here.”

“Oh, I’m not here to tell you that you need to train. I just wanted to make sure you’re... okay, after yesterday.”

Mayes shrugged. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be? We did pretty well, as far as I’m concerned, so.”

Citra pursed her lips. “We heard what Pandora said.”

Mayes looked away. “Yeah? ...What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me anything you know about having… a spirit? Attached to you? You’ve been complaining about your shoulders for years…”

Mayes raised their head to look her in the eye. “There’s nothing to say about it, Citra. I… Pandora is great, it’s not that I don’t believe her, it’s… I have no reason to believe why that should be true.”

Citra looked at them, considering her student for a moment. “Okay. You’re right. You know what, let’s do something else. We can work on your cyphers today.”

Mayes perked up. “Yeah, that would be great actually.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, lot of symbols in that labyrinth. Lots of good inspiration.”

“Come on, let’s go inside then.”

“Sure.”

Citra led them inside to her office space, one of the private classrooms for mentoring. She sat them down with all of their notes. “Go ahead. If you need any help, I’m right here.”

“Well… Okay,” Mayes considered, “Why don’t we each… come up with a message. And we can see who is quicker to figure out the other person’s.”

Citra gave a sharp nod. “You’re on.”

“Always on.”

Citra sat down at the desk, getting out her own supplies.

“Come on, Citra,” Mayes grinned. “It’s never going to not end up competitive.”

“Mhm. Okay… About competitive. One of the things I did notice yesterday…” she began putting together a code, purposefully blocking her page from view with her elbow as Mayes did the same. “After you touched that, um, cyclops statue…”

“Yes?”

“You had a little bit of a… Just, a little bit of a curse. Put on you. Just a little bit.”

“Just a little one.”

“You got quite… fussy, with the other two, about leading.”

“...And when I realized it wasn’t working, I let them take the lead.”

“You did,” Citra relented. “But you know what I’m saying.”

“I know what you’re saying.”

“You struggle with being too competitive. And you know that.”

“...Yeah.”

“Something to bear in mind, as you have to work in teams from now on. I know you’re used to working by yourself, with no one to impress but me… And there will be times when you’re out of this Academy where you’re working by yourself, probably quite a lot, but… When it does come to working with a team, that’s when you’re the most valuable to people.”

“Okay. Just, I… Didn’t want to be a let down. Thought I’d try.”

“I understand that. But it’s not letting people down to say,  _ I can’t do this right now, someone else take the lead _ . That’s sensible. You did do truly great, though, I saw your skills flourish. I was particularly impressed with the way you disarmed that arcane trap,” she recalled.

“Me too.”

“I mean, that’s something you could use a bit more practice on, because, it’s not really something we’ve concentrated on this year…”

“We don’t really do that very much.”

“And I didn’t think, really, about how much arcane stuff you’d be going up against. Not something that you’ve specialized in.”

“No, but, I do have some enchanted thieves’ tools now.”

“Which was a very smart buy.”

Mayes chuckled. “They need to stop calling them thieves’ tools, Citra. I’m not a thief. It’s a bad industry term.”

“Trap tools.”

“Trap tools, that’s better.”

“We’ll call them trap tools, and I’ll see about the school board changing it.”

“Thanks.”

“But you put that skill to perfect use, I mean, barely a lock you couldn’t pick. I was impressed with the way you were finding hiding spots in combat, using that maze to the best of your ability.”

“Yeah, it felt good.”

“You did good.”

“Thanks.”

“And, despite the competitiveness in places, you had great teamwork skills.”

Mayes nodded. “Working on it. They're… good friends.”

Citra seemed pleased to hear that, but she was holding back her response. “Good.” Citra turned further away with her paper, until the two were practically sitting back to back. “So, we can work on spotting some arcane elements. We could get some of the Medeis students to set up a few traps for you to try and figure out.”

“Little obstacle course?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“And you can show that Domus Callidus… is more valuable than the rest of the houses.”

“Of course,” Mayes grinned. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Citra laughed softly. “Right, are you almost done?”

“Yeah, I finished ages ago.”

“Sure. Sure you did. I’m almost done…” she fell silent for a bit, concentrating on the rest of her cypher. “How do you feel about the fact that you’re going to be finishing here soon?”

“...It’s… It’s weird. It’s been an interesting few years, living here.”

“You thinking you’ll go straight home?”

“No, I … want to go out and see a few other places, and get some practical experience, before thinking about that. I know it’s a lot to burden myself with, but, it’s something I want to do.”

“No, I think that’s reasonable. I just wonder what route you might wanna go into when you finish here. Political, military. Thinking about your goals, specifically.”

“Probably something to do with politics.”

“Okay, well, you know we’ve got contacts. We can pull a few strings.”

“Maybe joining up with some organization or another would be good for me, for a while.”

“Perhaps so.”

“Appreciate it.”

“So show me your cypher.”

“Okay,” Mayes straightened. “Swap on three? One.”

“Two.”

“Three!” they chorused.

The papers slid across the table, and they both set to work. Mayes could tell that Citra wasn’t entirely competing with them, and instead watching to see how her student worked. Mayes figured it out very quickly, matching the symbols to the letters in the anagram.

It read,

_ You passed the first task. _

Mayes looked at the paper and smiled. “Wow, you could have just said that in real words.”

“You wanted to do the competition thing.”

“I did, but I figured as much anyway,” they grinned.

“Right…” Citra finished deciphering her own.

It said,

_ I won’t let you down. You’ve given me the skills to achieve my goals and I am grateful. I will miss you, but your lessons stay with me. _

A heavily guarded expression came over Citra’s face, but Mayes had known her long enough to see a slight shine in her eyes, and a slight tension in her chest. “Hm. Good work.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Mayes echoed.

Citra inhaled slowly, and set her jaw. “Mayes.”

“Citra?”

“...Do you trust me?”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

Citra rubbed her chin. “This… This ghost thing…”

Mayes frowned.

“No, don’t give me that look,” she warned. “I would love to believe that it’s nothing. Okay? Just as much as you would. But… All three of us, watching the three of you go through the labyrinth, we couldn’t drop it. It could be dangerous, having a spirit attached to you? What if it’s… something demonic? What if it’s something that could harm you? I’m not asking you to think about it, I’m asking you to… trust me, to look into it. With the others. And, trust what we’re going to try to do for you.”

Mayes looked at the floor. “You do whatever you need to do.”

“And if there’s something you want to talk about at any point…” she trailed off expectantly.

“There’s nothing to talk about. I… I don’t know why that would be there.”

“I don’t mean… I don’t mean talk about, to explain to me what’s going on. I mean talk about the way you’re feeling. I’ve never seen you shaken up like that.”

Mayes shook their head. “I don’t know Citra, so,” they shrugged.

Citra reached over a hand and placed it on their shoulder.

“Oh, careful,” Mayes deadpanned. “You might be touching a ghost.”

Citra chuckled a bit.

Mayes did not. “I’m fine.”

“I know.”

“Just keep going.”

“Yeah. And just don’t think about it. For now. Leave us to deal with it.”

“Yeah. Go talk to… Pandora’s mentor. Or something.”

“I’m going to.”

“Seems like a smart guy,” Mayes stood, walking to the door before calling over their shoulder. “Not as smart as you!”

Citra watched them go, and let them leave.

  
  


Pandora got dressed, had breakfast, and went to the library. Alexander happened across her in the library as he was returning some books. He spotted her across the room, smiled, and came over. “Pandora.”

Pandora looked up and blushed a bit. “Hi.”

“How are you doing after yesterday?”

“Yeah, I think I’m doing okay. I’ve just sort of been going over everything and seeing where I could have improved, and where I made mistakes, and where I could have done better, and… Yeah, it’s good to see, maybe we can go over some of it.”

“I would like that very much. Would you like to find somewhere private to speak, or are you happy to speak here?”

“We can go somewhere else.”

“Okay. Come on down to my office, then.”

“Okay,” she gathered up her things, the kingfisher on her shoulder.

Alexander walked slowly in step with her, seemingly not in any sort of hurry. He led them down to his office, chatting about how she was getting along with the others, and if she had enjoyed the task. As they got down to the office, he opened the door and let her in first.

“Thanks,” Pandora smiled.

Instead of the standard desk with a chair on either side, Alexander had a smaller corner desk with a few armchairs and private bookshelves, with some shelves emptied of books and filled with arcane objects. He gestured to one of the armchairs, and busied himself in the corner with a silver teapot. He only had to heat it up by touch before pouring it straight into two mugs.

“You still need to teach me how to do that,” Pandora commented.

“Hm, I dunno. That’s my private trick. I think people would abuse it, if they knew how,” he joked.

“You know I’d never abuse anything you taught me.”

Alexander set the tea down on a little table between the armchairs, and sat in the other one. “So how do you think you did?”

“Um, there were good and bad points to it, I think. Like, taking down that crystal minotaur at the end was pretty cool. And I’m so glad that it actually worked, because I know the number of times we’ve tried to use that spell and it hasn’t worked. And, how I managed to sculpt the spell so that it didn’t hit the others, because again, that’s something that can go so wrong if you don’t calculate it properly. But like, there were other times, like when I touched the sarcophagus and like, completely got knocked out right at the beginning, that was like, ugh, that’s just going to tarnish me for the whole event. That’s just gonna be a shadow on my performance the whole time. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

“I have to say, your… kill shot, on the minotaur, at the end… We were all very impressed. That was… how to say this… That was magnificent, Pandora.”

Pandora blushed vermillion, but he didn’t seem to notice. Or, if he did, he was very polite about it.

Alexander sipped his tea. “I was wondering if you’d attempt to use that spell. And, I would say, that was mastery of it. I haven’t seen it used like that for a long time.”

“Thanks. I was saving it for something big.”

“And the juggernaut, that came out of the sarcophagus. I mean, you took that down as well.”

She smiled to herself. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

“You worked well with your teammates, but you did exceptionally well when you were separated. That was something that surprised me, I suppose. You didn’t even take that potion you picked up to comfort yourself.”

“You know what... I kind of forgot I had it,” she realized.

“Well, good.”

“I wonder if just having it, and having the placebo, was kind of helpful in itself.”

“It’s good to see confidence in you. And, your solution, with the chest puzzle in the center, with the darkness. Brilliant.”

“That was... that was down to the others as well, though…”

“Don’t talk yourself down. That was your spell, that was your skill. And if you hadn’t had that, who knows what the three of you would have figured out.”

“We could have just put a blanket over it or something, now that I think about it.”

Alexander chuckled. “Using Puck to navigate the maze as well…”

“Yeah, wasn’t he great? You were great!” she turned to the bird on her shoulder. Puck ruffled his feathers.

“The two of you were great. You make a great team.”

Pandora smiled at the bird. “Hear that, buddy?”

Puck whistled.

“I’m very proud,” Alexander smiled. “Proud of you for being resourceful, proud of you for being confident. I just… We all agree you did the best, out of the three of you.”

Pandora was breathless. “What?”

“Absolutely.”

She put her hands over her mouth, misty eyed. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely, all three of us.”

“Oh my Gods!” she laughed.

“One of the best performances in the labyrinth that we’ve seen.”

Pandora was speechless. “...Thank you!”

“Of course. Don’t let your tea get cold.”

She quickly scooped up the cup.

“So I think it’s safe to say,” he continued, “I shouldn’t have to say it, but, you passed.”

“Thank you!”

“And I knew you would. I didn’t have any doubt in my mind.”

“That means so much, thank you so much Alexander,” she sniffed.

“And good use of the invisibility spell you picked up.”

“Yeah, that was lucky we did that.”

“And the shield.”

“Yeah, was lucky we did that as well.”

“It’s not luck, it’s just good practice. There’s a reason you’re top of your class.”

“Yeah,” she smiled. “Oh, speaking of the invisibility thing, like, I figured with the bracelets you were probably watching the whole thing…”

“Yes.”

“But, like, did you see… I don’t suppose you could have seen what I saw?”

“I couldn’t see what you saw, no.”

“No…”

“But, I’m inclined to believe you. I mean, that spell would show something like that up instantly.”

“Yeah. It was horrible.”

“I think it’s best something perhaps the faculty look into,” he replied. “But you can help if you want to.”

“Yeah, of course. I want to help you, and I want to help Mayes.”

“Well, we will help them. And perhaps do a bit of research, and then maybe approach them about it. I wouldn’t want to scare them off.”

“No, it seemed to really shake them up, when I said that, but… I couldn’t not, you know?”

“Oh no, you definitely did the right thing. So…” he leaned back, tentatively changing the conversation. “I did have some… critiques.”

“Please!”

Alexander looked a bit relieved that she hadn’t been upset by that, and sighed in relief. “Okay.”

“No, please,” Pandora encouraged. “I need to know what I did wrong, so I can not do it again in the future.”

“It wasn’t anything that you did wrong. It was… That power you put into that last spell…”

“Yeah. It took a lot.”

“It took a lot. It was incredible control, but… Some of your smaller, more rudimentary spells weren’t taking.”

“Yeah, I know. I don’t know why, maybe my head wasn’t in it.”

“The way we’ve trained, you should be able to take some of that energy that you put into those huge spells, and channel it into your rudimentary magic.”

“Okay…”

“I think it’s something that perhaps we didn’t spend enough time working on. But we can.”

“Maybe, yeah. We wanted to concentrate on the big stuff, and didn't really think of the foundations of it all.”

“Precisely. And you’re nailing the big stuff, so, perhaps back to basics before your next task?”

“Yeah, we can do that.”

“Okay. Well, would you like to now? Are you feeling up to it? You can take a day of rest if you want…”

“No no no, I’m fine! I’m fine, I can do it. I can do it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” he finished his cup of tea and stood up, as did she.

“This is really good tea, by the way. As always.”

“Thank you. Please, follow me.”

He led her down to one of Domus Medeis’s underground training rooms for spellcasting, located way out of range of the melee and martial fighters in case something went wrong. He took her down to a large underground chamber with several dummies set up along the sides, and braziers along the walls that lit up as they walked in, the flames growing blue.

“Okay. I think perhaps if we just practice some basic hits to start with?”

“Okay.”

“So,” he threw a hand out, pulling a dummy towards him with a spell, and positioning it in the center of the room. “I’m going to move it, I just want you to hit it.”

“Okay. Right back to basics, nothing big and fancy?”

“Nothing big and fancy. Just those rudimentary skills that don’t drain your reserves.”

“Okay, I can try that.”

He moved the mannequin towards her, and she threw out an icy ray, blasting it over instantly.

“Good,” he nodded. “Again.”

Her second shot, this time of fire, went far wide as he zigzagged the dummy across the room.

“Dang it!”

“It’s okay. Again.”

She tried the same thing, blasting the target as it erupted in flame. He hurried to put the dummy out.

“Okay, good. Now, you feel that arcane energy sort of forming inside of you, and coming out through the spell? I want you to try and hold onto that feeling.”

“Okay.”

“Are you ready for something bigger?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Alexander conjured eight pixies into the air. They coalesced out of smoke, fluttering their tiny wings, and buzzing around the room with their eyes on Pandora as they flew towards her.

“Oh wow, that’s cool. You’re going to have to teach me how to do that. Still the most basic things?”

“Still the most basic things. Nothing higher.”

“Okay…” she tried to send another fire spell to the nearest one, and missed. “Wiley!”

“Okay, try something else.”

The pixies flit over her head and all over the room.

Pandora tried an ice spell, and missed.

“Try something that doesn’t require you hit the target,” he advised. “Try an effect.”

She swung her pendulum, and bells rang out through the bunker space. The closest one blinked a bit, but shook it off, unbothered

“It’s okay,” Alexander assured her. “Try to channel that energy that you feel inside yourself, try and damage it anyway.”

“...What? But… it dodged it?”

“You can latch onto the creature, you can force it to take damage. I know you have this strength in you, it’s part of what we’ve been training with, the same power that gives you the ability to sculpt your spells. Try again.”

“Okay…”

Pandora tried again. At first, the pixie seemed to shake it off again. She closed her eyes, feeling the link between herself, the crystal, and the pixie.

Suddenly, it dissipated in the air, sent back to the plane it came from.

“Wait… that worked?”

“It worked,” Alexander smiled. “Again.”

Pandora went again. Another vanished from the air.

“Another fire, hit it,” he called.

She tried, and missed.

“Again.”

She went again. The third pixie erupted into flame.

“Good, Pandora!”

Alexander continued on, summoning more and more of them as she cleared the field. After a while, he began to send larger things. She could feel herself doing more damage, even when the creature tried to shake off her spells. “This is so cool!”

“I knew you had it in you!”

Pandora panted. “Okay, just, take five, take five.”

“You can take a break,” he dismissed all the pixies at once, and they popped out of the air.

Puck chased one as it disappeared. 

“You get ‘em buddy, you get ‘em!” Pandora called.

Alexander smiled at her. “Good.”

“Okay, that was so cool.”

“That’s what I want to see in your next task.”

“Yeah. Thank you. That’s going to be really useful.”

“I will let you take a break now.”

“Mhm. Yeah, it’s not the… feeling drained, in the arcane sense, it’s just… There were so many of them, and they were so quick.”

“You did very well.”

“Thanks.”

“You should probably go find your peers, and…”

“Yeah, yeah I will.”

“Tell them that you passed.”

“Yeah, I’ve gotta see how they did as well.”

“I’ll let you get to it then.”

He dismissed her, and she made her way out, blushing furiously.

  
  


The three students found eachother in the courtyard outside soon after.

“Hey guys,” Mayes nodded.

“Hi!” Pandora smiled.

“Good news?”

“Yeah…we…”

“We all passed,” Icarus grinned.

“Yay!” Pandora jumped. “We passed! Oh, congratulations guys, you were so good!”

“You too!”

“Yeah, you guys were amazing,” Mayes agreed.

“I’m so proud of all of us,” Icarus reached out both arms, wrapping them each in a side hug.

“I couldn’t have done it without you guys,” Pandora smiled.

“And we get to do the next part together again,” Mayes added.

Icarus released them to pump his fists in the air. “I’m so looking forward to it! That means we get to go celebrate, and we can do what you guys said, we can go get to know each other!”

“Yeah, that would be nice,” Pandora agreed.

“And we can take you to the coliseum! Oh, we should get dressed, we should get dressed nice for it.”

The games started fairly early for family events, at around 5:30pm. It was only about 2:00pm now, but Icarus was already raring to go.

“We’ve got some time, surely,” Pandora countered.

“I know,” Icarus relented. “But we can get food and stuff as well.”

“That would be good.”

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “I was thinking maybe we should go check with Master Auron? See if there’s like, some contracts that we can take between now and the second task?”

“That’s a good idea.”

Mayes glanced over to Icarus. “You need to work off your debt, dude.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve got way more than you guys,” he admitted. “It was worth it, it was worth it.”

“Sure. But like, before we go get too into it, we should go have a look, I guess.”

“Do the sensible things first, and then we can celebrate,” Pandora agreed.

“Exactly.”

“Sounds good,” Icarus chuckled. “Let’s go see Sebaste.”

They headed to Sebaste’s office. As the Master of Contracts, Sebaste was always in the same place. There was no one else waiting, so they knocked on the door.

“Com in!” he called.

Icarus pushed open the door. “Hello!”

“Ah, you three.”

“We wanted to look at some contracts that you’ve got going?”

“Yes, yes, you finished your first task…”

“Yeah, we passed!” Icarus announced excitedly.

“I have a record here of the debt that you ran up for the equipment…”

“Yeah, you do,” Icarus replied, less excitedly.

“We need to start paying some of those off,” Pandora worried.

Sebaste nodded to Mayes. “It was, I believe, 180 gold for you.”

“Yeah,” they confirmed.

“252 for you,” he nodded to Pandora. “And… 335 gold for you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Icarus shrugged. “I figured it was worth it.”

“It was worth it for your chainmail,” Pandora agreed.

“Is there anything that you didn’t use that you’d like to return? To ease the debt?” Sebaste offered. “I mean, you can hang onto them for future tasks, or...”

“No, I’ll keep mine,” Icarus decided. “They came in handy, so.”

“I think I’m good with everything I have,” Pandora agreed. “I’ll hang onto it for now.”

“Same,” Mayes agreed.

“It saves buying it again,” Icarus reasoned.

“Exactly.”

“If there's anything that you found that you wanted to hand over?” Sebaste continued. “You can.”

“Oh yeah!” Icarus took out the small vial of purple potion they had found.

“Ah. Do you want me to find out what this is for you?”

“That’d be good. Thank you,” Pandora accepted.

Sebaste examined the item for a moment before handing it back. “This is a potion of dark vision. Drinking this will give one hour of dark vision to the person who drinks it.”

“Oh, that’s useful! Amazing!”

“That’s incredibly handy,” Icarus agreed, taking it back.

“I can see, so one of you guys have it,” Pandora reasoned. “Obviously, I can see in the dark.”

“I’ve still got my lantern,” Mayes shrugged.

“Sure,” Icarus nodded. “We’ll just keep hold of it, we don’t know when we’ll need it.”

“Do you want to hang onto it in your stuff?” Pandora offered.

“Sounds good.”

“Okay.”

“How much do I owe again?” Icarus asked.

“335 gold,” Sebaste repeated. “You’re here, I suppose, to find a way to pay that off?”

“Yeah, we wanted to see what contracts you had going?” Pandora wondered.

“Of course, of course. Um, well… We’ve been quite busy this time of year, you know, with the final exams, and people taking in contracts, but there are a few things coming up…” He leafed through some papers on his desk, licked a finger, picked something else up, went through a drawer, and pulled out a few scrolls before clearing his throat. “Right, we have a contract here… for some outliers in the marshes. Some fishermen who live out there, apparently there’s a group of humanoid creatures in the water that have been sinking some fishing boats. They’re offering a sum of 200 gold total, and traveling expenses, offered to students who will find these creatures and eliminate them. Or, you know, usher them on their way.”

“Okay,” Pandora nodded.

“That would be split between you.”

“Of course,” Icarus agreed.

“There’s another here…. Hmm…” he looked at a few more, glancing between the three students and considering their skills. “Will it just be the three of you?”

They nodded.

“Okay, there’s… a local Temple of Pelor in a village outside Erran called Agein. They’re requesting Delphos students to escort pilgrims to a village on the east, called Caldis. Sum of 210 gold is offered.”

“Yeah, we can definitely do that,” Icarus nodded.

“How far is the journey for that?” Pandora wondered.

“It would probably be about four days in total, there and back,” Sebaste explained.

“I’d be more than happy to help people go on their pilgrimage,” Icarus replied.

“Then…. Ah,” Sebaste sat up straighter. “Further, slightly further north, on the coastline up from Erran, some people have been disappearing. Quite a serious one, um, a sum of 260 gold is offered to anyone or any people who can find the cause of this and stop it. With bonus sums for bringing back each missing person.”

“...Okay,” Pandora nodded. “That one sounds quite pressing.”

“I’d be very interested in doing that,” Mayes agreed.

“Yeah,” Icarus nodded. “Definitely. They all sound very pressing.”

“There is one more,” Sebaste continued, “But I don’t know whether it will clash with your next exam. It’s not for a few weeks.”

“What is it?” Pandora wondered.

“Some guards-slash-guides, for political visitors from Vishima.”

Mayes’ head shot up. “Oh.”

“But that’s not for a few weeks. I thought I might offer it to you because perhaps, it might be of interest? For quite a hefty sum, of 700 gold pieces.”

“Oh my gosh…” Pandora gasped.

“It’s four days worth of work, guarding and guiding them around the city.”

Mayes considered it. “...Huh.”

“Okay,” Pandora nodded. “Well I mean, that would pretty much wipe out all of our debt.”

“Yeah,” Icarus realized. “Well, we’ll keep it in mind. Because, if it does clash, then…”

“These first three that I’m offering you, they’re as soon as possible,” Sebaste explained. “That one is sort of in ten to fifteen days, as far as I know.”

“The people disappearing sounds pretty pressing,” Pandora worried.

“Yeah, definitely,” Icarus agreed. “Um, yeah. All three of those, honestly.”

“We could do them all, as well.”

“Okay,” Sebaste considered. “I can put those on reserve for you, but I don’t want you to take all three of them just in case- ”

“No, of course,” Icarus agreed.

“Perhaps starting with the missing people,” Mayes advised. “Just so we can nip that in the bud.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Great, great,” Sebaste nodded. “Well then, the three of you…” he unrolled the contract, placing it in front of them with a pot of ink and a pen. They signed at the bottom. “Thank you very much,” he rolled it back up. “As soon as you’re ready to begin that, you can come to me. You know, gather the information you need, and set out.”

“Thank you,” Pandora nodded.

“Cool,” Icarus replied. “We’ll probably do that… tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “Give ourselves tonight.”

“The second task isn’t for a few days,” Pandora worried. “Right?”

“No no no,” Sebaste assured them. “It shouldn’t be for, perhaps, even a week.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah, Lorakai said we got plenty of time this week to do stuff,” Icarus explained.

“Okay, yeah. So tomorrow? Tomorrow would be good.”

“Yeah, why not.”

“Tomorrow morning then,” Sebaste agreed. “I will make sure everything is prepared for you to take on your journey.”

“Perfect.”

“Thank you so much,” Pandora smiled.

“Thanks. We’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“I’ll see you,” Sebaste nodded.

“Oh, before we go,” Pandora remembered, “Um, you’re in charge of… Not necessarily the labyrinth itself, but, contracts and organizing things like that… I just wondered if you knew anything more about the labyrinth? Because there were a lot of things that we found out, but didn’t really understand why they were in place?”

“Like the Ancient Errani,” Icarus recalled. “And the Baphomet stuff?”

“Yeah, and the Abyssal? Was that…?”

“I was wondering that myself,” Mayes agreed.

Sebaste leaned forward. “I can tell you, but you have to promise you’ll keep this information to yourselves, away from the other students…”

The three of them chorused their agreement.

“See… it is a prehistoric site.”

“Really?” Pandora gasped.

“I can tell you that the Ancient Errani was placed there by professors, in order to plan the labyrinth, but anything in reference to Abyssal, that wasn’t us.”

“So that’s like a… That’s like a real historical site that we were in?”

“It was. The labyrinth itself was discovered by a student, some twenty years ago, on a contract. Hunting down a spirit naga, at the time.”

“No way!”

“It had nested there, and was seeking to use the… You saw what sort of information was there, unfinished rituals and research, within the labyrinth, to finish a transformation.”

“For what?” Icarus wondered.

“Spirit nagas… Many nagas can do things to the effect of transforming into a powerful being. It was unfortunately missing key elements of its transmutation, and hunting down mages for their research and their skills within Erran, and had to be stopped. The spirit naga was defeated by the student and some of the faculty of Delphos.”

“What people?” Pandora pressed. “Any of them who still work here?”

“Not working here anymore. This was quite a large event, actually, for the city. But it was hushed up, for the school to use the labyrinth for training. Delphos did some investigation afterwards, trying to make sense of everything we found in there. We needed to make sure it was safe before anyone could enter. Found numerous writings in Abyssal, and diagrams on magical illusions and necromantic rituals, arcane journals, helping us to piece together. Seemed like an ancient cult of Baphomet, as you said, constructed a place of worship there. Deep underground. And built the labyrinth itself to keep out trespassers, and unwanted visitors. But, perhaps, instead, it was a rite of passage for initiates… a lot of it was unclear, from what was left there.”

“Yeah, it was all sort of half information,” Pandora recalled. “Especially when we couldn’t read Abyssal.”

“Quite. And there’s not that many people that can, you know. But, what happened to the cult is very unclear. Scholars have managed to date back some of those writings to nearly 500 years before recorded history. Some twelve hundred years ago.”

Mayes let out a low whistle.

“No way,” Pandora mumbled. She was transfixed.

“The student who discovered the labyrinth went on to join Erran’s city council,” Sebaste continued. “And so, consequently, the city permitted the Academy to use the tomb for training purposes.”

“Who was that student?” Icarus wondered.

“High Councilor Leonida.”

“Impressive,” Mayes nodded.

“Leonida?” Pandora repeated. “Are they related to Alexis, by any chance?”

“His father, I believe,” Sebaste nodded.

“No way…”

“Much of the construction inside there is original, although we have removed anything fatal from the traps and puzzles, and put a few of our own in, as I’m sure you discovered. But most of the original information we left inside there to… aid or confuse students. And, much much more of it was archived for research.”

“That’s amazing,” Icarus grinned.

“It’s quite the sight.”

“It’s amazing that you can use it,” Pandora agreed. “And that it’s still so intact.”

“It requires, occasionally, a fair bit of reconstruction after exams.”

“I can imagine.”

“I suppose every time someone kills a crystal minotaur, you have to go make a new one,” Mayes concluded.

Sebaste nodded. “We do, yes.”

“Expensive.”

“It’s cool though,” Icarus chuckled.

“It was tough,” Pandora replied.

“Yeah, but like, the fact that it would just run up to you and then be like,  _ agh! _ And then, run away?”

“To wear down students before the end,” Sebatse explained.

“Tricky,” Mayes agreed.

Pandora tilted her head, considering. “That’s quite a good strategy, actually.”

“Yeah, you got it with the blindness though,” Icarus countered.

“You slowed it down,” Mayes nodded.

She shrugged. “DIdn’t think that would work, but…”

Sebaste leaned back. “I hope that satisfies your curiosity, in any case.”

“It does, thank you. That’s so cool.”

“I do, personally, love this stuff. I was a student myself, at the time, so it was quite…”

“Were you?”

“Yes.”

“What house were you in?”

“Anterus.”

Icarus smiled. “That makes sense.”

Sebaste was a very jittery man.

“Are the rest of the exams based in historical sites as well?” Pandora pressed. “Because that’s so cool, if they are.”

“Quite a few of them,” he admitted.

“I guess we’ll find out,” Mayes reasoned.

“I know you probably can’t tell us anything either,” Icarus began, “But there was… a student, that was brought in last night. Are they okay?”

“...I’m afraid I don’t know,” Sebaste shook his head. “It’s not anything to do with a contract. If it was, I would have been told.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured, I thought I’d ask you.”

“Hope they’re okay,” Pandora frowned.

“I hope so too,” Sebaste agreed. “A friend of yours?”

“We don’t know what it was,” Icarus shrugged.

“It was all very hush hush,” Pandora explained. “They kind of… put an illusion over themselves so that no one would see.”

“Went through a back door in the infirmary when we were there getting patched up,” Icarus added.

Sebaste nodded. “Well, I sincerely hope they’re okay. But I wouldn't worry about it, the infirmary will have it covered.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I’ll see you in the morning, I suppose.”

“See you tomorrow,” Mayes nodded.

“See you tomorrow,” Pandora echoed.

Icarus made for the door. “See you early.”

“See you early,” Sebaste replied.

The three students stepped out into the hall.

“Okay,” Icarus began. “So, we’ve got to go get food, because if you think I’m gonna watch the gladiators on an empty stomach… no.”

“We deserve a good meal,” Mayes agreed.

“We do.”

“Can we get ice cream?” Pandora wondered.

“Yes! We can definitely get ice cream.”

“Sure,” Mayes shrugged.

“And gelato.”

“Gelato…” Pandora agreed.

“Both.”

Mayes looked over to Icarus. “How many dolmades are you gonna eat today?”

“Yes,” Pandora replied. “That’s the answer.”

Icarus thought about it. “Is that a question, or a challenge?”

“Challenge,” Mayes decided.

“Nice.”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s get changed, because I don’t want to go in uniform. I know a place we could go. And it’s real close to the arena, so we’ll be there on time.”

“We’ll follow your lead,” Mayes agreed.

“Take your badges. We get a student discount on drinks.”

  
  


They dressed themselves in casual tunics, and Icarus draped on a top with one shoulder, allowing some of his gills to peek out of the side. He led the others to a sports bar across from the gladiator arena that sold good food and ice cream, the Pthari Taverna. They strolled through the Imperial Plaza to the other side, the massive sandstone walls of the gigantic Maw Coliseum before them once again. Outside, there were already masses of people queuing up. The coliseum held thousands and thousands of spectators, and they were all waiting to get inside.

“That’s usually me,” Icarus grinned.

“Not today,” Mayes replied.

Pandora gasped. “That’s a lot of people. Do we need to start queueing now, or…?”

“No, I figured, we just give our names, and they’ll show us to our seats.”

“Yeah, let’s go get some food,” Icarus agreed. “It’ll be fine.”

“We can relax.”

“Okay,” Pandora agreed.

They made their way to the Pthari Tavern. It had a terrace out front with tables outside looking right at the Maw Arena. There was a young half-elf bartender who waved when they arrived. “Hi Icarus!”

“Hi, how you doin?” Icarus grinned back. “I brought friends!”

“You did! That’s different. Take a seat anywhere you want, I’ll get some drinks.”

“Thanks.”

“Thank you,” Pandora smiled.

The bartender returned with three flagons of wine, setting them down on the table with a plate of dolmades. “Can I get anything for you?”

“You already got me covered,” Icarus chuckled.

Mayes thought. “Just some fried fish.”

“Fried fish,” the bartender nodded.

“Um, do you have stuffed peppers?” Pandora asked.

“We do indeed have stuffed peppers.”

“Stuffed peppers would be amazing, please.”

“No problem.”

“Thanks,” Icarus smiled.

The employee left them sitting on the terrace as they went back inside for the food.

Icarus leaned back in his chair. “I love this place.”

“It’s really nice,” Pandora agreed.

“I love this time of year.”

It was almost the start of winter in Erran, which was only ever just a few degrees cooler than the usual heat, but for now it was pleasantly balanced outside. A few moths and flies buzzed in the air, but nothing bothered them as the insects would have in the heat of summer. The sun was starting to dip, throwing a golden evening light over the street.

“So,” Mayes began.

“So?” Icarus prompted.

“We know we all passed…”

“Yes!”

“And we know what each other are like in a tricky situation. I know your favorite colors now…”

“No you don’t,” Icarus countered.

Pandora gasped. “Did you lie?”

Mayes furrowed their brow. “Did you lie?”

“...No, I’m kidding,” Icarus chuckled.

Mayes relaxed. “I figured. So, I guess it’s… What else do we say that friends are supposed to know about each other?”

“We can just chat, and get to know each other.”

“Yeah,” Pandora agreed. “Like… where did you guys grow up? I know that you’ve always lived in Erran, and you were from Vishima,” she pointed to Icarus and Mayes in turn, “But not really much more aside from that. Do you have… like, brothers and sisters?”

“Uh, I didn’t have any siblings,” Mayes replied. “It was just…” they counted on their fingers, “Me, my mom, my dad, and my grandfather, we all lived together. And sometimes we’d have my friend Jeiro around, for dinner, and stuff. His, uh, his mom went missing, when we were like… ten? So… we, we had him around a lot more after that.”

“Did they ever find her?”

“Oh, no. It’s uh, like I said before, it’s very… A lot of the land in Vishima is very wild. And every now and then, people just go wandering off, and go missing. Or that’s what they tell you.”

“That’s spooky,” Icarus frowned.

“Yeah, sometimes it’s kind of spooky out there, but… it’s home. It’s beautiful. We had a great time.”

“We have to go there one day.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna go back. Take you guys with me, if you want.”

“Show us around,” Icarus grinned, turning to Pandora. “How about you?”

“Well, there’s me, my dad, and my two sisters,” she replied. “Persephone and Penelope.”

“Cute,” Mayes chuckled.

“Persephone is four years older and Penepole- Penepole?” she grinned, shaking her head.

“How much have you had?” Icarus teased, poking her glass.

“I’ve had one,” she laughed. “Penelope is five years younger than me. But yeah, we were always really close.”

“Thats nice.”

“My dad’s great.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Oh, I should call him! I need to tell him everything from yesterday, and that we passed! And that, we’re doing the second one, and… Yeah.”

“I bet he’s gonna be dead proud of you.”

“Top of your class,” Mayes grinned. “Best in the group.”

“I’ll wait until we’re done here though,” she decided.

“Sure, you can tell him you came to the Maw too,” Icarus suggested.

“Yeah, so many firsts. I can only ever short message, though. I’m going to need to do it in, like, shorthand. Somehow.”

“You can send a letter, maybe.”

“Yeah, it’s nice to hear his voice, though.”

“And you?”

“Uh…” Icarus shrugged. “Lorakai is my family. Uh, came to Erran when I was about nine?”

“Oh, so you weren’t from Erran before?”

“...No, not really.”

“Where were you from before?”

“Uh… Not anywhere, really. I guess, um… Other side of Caldera.”

“Oh, wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Far to go,” Mayes observed.

“Kinda far,” He admitted. “But uh, you know… Boats are, um… We took a boat. Here. Um, but yeah, so I was in the Temple. Which was great. And then I met Lorakai because he was injured.”

“Really?” Pandora pressed.

“Yeah, he was in the army, he was a really great soldier. And he got injured, which is when he lost his, you know, his leg and his eye. Um, and I helped heal him. When I was like… fourteen, fifteen?”

“That’s really big for a teenager to do.”

“Yeah, that’s impressive,” Mayes agreed.

“Well, you know,” he shrugged. “I was just putting into effect what I could do.”

“And what, you took a shine to each other?” Pandora guessed.

“Yeah, something like that. And he said that I got potential, so, he let me move in with him. And I lived with him for a few years until he convinced me to finally join the Academy.”

“Good call on his part,” Mayes teased.

“Yeah, I agree,” Icarus chuckled. “It was still quite funny, moving all of my stuff out of his apartment in the Academy to the dorms on the Academy.”

“You didn’t have far to go then,” Pandora joked. “You could just keep going back and forth, didn’t need to take a cart or anything.”

“Yeah, and now he’s told me I’m not allowed to move back in with him after this, so…” Icarus shook his head. “Apparently he has... lady friends? Now?”

“He’s allowed!”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Mayes nodded.

Icarus sputtered a bit. “I- I know! But also… Wow?”

“Come on, you’re an adult. You can get your own place.”

“Yeah I know, I just, didn’t think about it.”

“You just kind of assumed it would go back to how it always was,” Pandora smiled.

“Yeah. I know I shouldn’t have, but.”

“I guess I know what you mean though. I always kind of assumed that when I’m done here I’m just gonna go back to my dad’s place. But I probably shouldn’t, I should probably get my own place like Persephone.”

“I mean, we could live together,” Icarus grinned.

“Really?”

“Well, why not? I’d be cheaper.”

“True.”

“I don’t know how long I’m going to be staying in Erran, after everything,” Mayes warned.

“You could stay with us anyway,” Icarus offered.

“Sure, for a bit.”

“Well, do you know what you want to do?” Pandora asked. “When you leave?”

“Um, I was actually talking with Citra about it. Just thinking of maybe getting involved in some of the organizations and contacts the school has.”

“Okay.”

“Taking on some… I guess, apprentice work… With people with actual experience.”

“Yeah, that could be really good for you.”

“It will be.”

“It’s a good way to learn on the job, I guess,” Icarus agreed.

Mayes took another drink. “Exactly.”

“And you’re gonna stay here,” Pandora nodded to Icarus. “Because you’re gonna become a gladiator.”

Icarus laughed. “Maybe.”

“Even better than The Lion of Erran,” Mayes pressed.

“Wow, I really doubt that.”

“The Sealion of Erran,” Pandora suggested.

“The Shark of Erran,” Mayes proposed.

Icarus laughed. “I don’t know. I still don’t know what I’m gonna do, I mean… I technically still work at the Temple, I help out there every free day that I’ve got. And for big events and occasions, I do official business there with them. So maybe still with that. I think Lorakai thinks that I can… Not do  _ better _ than the Temple, but that… I should dream bigger, I guess.”

“That’s okay, to dream bigger,” Pandora replied.

“Yeah. I don’t know. What about you guys, do you work, or…?”

“Not really. I did some tutoring for a while to earn a little bit of pocket money, but my dad wants me to become an advisor, like, to the government, or nobility, or something.”

“Yeah?”

“Like my mom was. That’s what my sister does now, she was at the Academy as well.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s awesome! Yeah, I could see you doing that. Do you want to do that?”

Pandora shrugged. “It’s what my dad wants.”

Icarus eyed her. “Yeah, that’s not what I asked, though.”

Pandora shifted. “I don’t know. Like, I guess I’ve never really thought about it. It’s just always been what my goal was, because, that’s what he’s always said. You can go to Delphos and get a great job working as an advisor, like your mom.”

“It’s a high expectation,” Mayes replied. “I can see why you’re so nervous all of the time.”

“Yeah… I don’t want to let him down.”

“That’s fair. But, like Icarus said, you know, think about what  _ you _ want to do.”

“I guess. Just because, he’s always put in so much work for the three of us. Like, he worked so hard to provide us with a nice house and a good education. I feel like I kind of owe it to him, especially because he loved my mom so much.”

“That’s fair.”

“She’s not around anymore?” Icarus guessed.

“No,” Pandora replied. “She passed away when I was eight.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“So,” Icarus continued on, “You should still think about what you want to do. If you could, anything in the world. Your dad has never said  _ I think you should do this. _ What would you want to do?”

“I guess I’ve never really thought about it. Like… It would be nice to do something for me, and not just to advise someone else, you know.”

“Yeah. Yeah!”

“I don’t know what, but it would be nice to not have to tell someone else what to do. Just tell myself what to do.”

“Well, maybe you can be in a position of power, and advise yourself.”

“Maybe,” she smiled. “I don't know about that, but maybe.”

“Maybe.”

“We’ll see.”

“Never say never.”

“Yeah.”

As they talked, they noticed the street begin to fill up with vendors. There was a huge stretch of promenade between them and the coliseum, and all through the space, people put blankets out on the floor with their wares, set up tables with colorful awnings, and played music down the block as it grew darker. Vendors set up stores with used books, antiques, and jewelry, with freshly grilled meat on sale.

“Those guys with the mats on the floor,” Icarus pointed, “You can get a tiny Maw statue.”

“How many tiny Maw statues do you have?” Pandora grinned.

“Ah... one? That’s a normal amount to have!” he defended.

Mayes studied the triton. He definitely had more than one. “Do they come in different colors, or something?”

“Yeah, you can get them in any color you want.”

“Mhm.”

“You can get them in purple!” he advertised.

“I don’t want one.”

“I’m okay,” Pandora smiled. “I’m good. Although some of this stuff looks cool, it might be nice to have a look before we go inside.”

“Yeah, definitely!” Icarus grinned.

In the center of Erran, at the end of every fortnight, there was a lovely marketplace in the central square, the Agora. This looked like a smaller version of it, a massive flea market with people peddling all kinds of crafts and secondhand items. There was definitely some more touristy items there, taking advantage of the massive crowd outside the coliseum, but there were some really nice stores as well, with jewelry made of gemstones, fancy clothes and brooches, old books, beautifully made daggers, sweets, with lines of people selling anything you could think think of stretching far down the street. Icarus grabbed some pasteli, a small puffed pastry bar made with honey and sesame seeds, while Mayes went for a sharable plate of baklava. They walked past vendors selling honeyed cashews, turkish delights, and gelato. It was a wonderful experience to look at the stores and feel the buzzing atmosphere of people getting ready for a night out. While gladiator matches happened frequently, they were the epicenter of entertainment in Erran. Of the people queuing up outside, some came every week, while some had saved up for ages to see a match. There were families, couples on dates, and old veterans who came to get a glance at what their life used to be like back as soldiers. People were peddling tickets outside, offering the best seats.

They strolled past the front of the queue, and a few people who had been waiting for ages looked at them indignantly.

Icarus smiled at the attendant at the front. “Hi!”

“Are you sure we can do this?” Pandora worried. “Don’t we need to queue?”

“They took our names,” Mayes reasoned.

“Yeah, we got told to…” Icarus trailed off, noticing the attendant still looking at them expectantly. “Hi, um, we got our names taken?”

“Mayes Hasagawa,” Mayes pointed to themselves, “Icarus Pelayo, Pandora Di Rossi.”

“Guest list?” the attendant prompted.

“Yes,” Icarus replied.

“Guest list,” they nodded. They went to look through a few scrolls, the parchment winding down to their feet. When they found the names, their face shifted a bit in surprise. “Oh. Welcome to The Maw.”

The trio chorused back their thanks one after the other.

“Come with me,” the attendant roped off the front of the line, taking the three of them away from the main entrance.

“Um, are we not just gonna go to our seats?” Mayes asked.

“Well, you’ve got VIP passes,” they shrugged.

They took them around to the gladiators door around the side. Icarus practically vibrated with excitement, grabbing at Mayes’ shoulder.

“Hey buddy,” Mayes steadied the triton. “Do you need a minute?”

Pandora eyed him. “Are you okay?”

Icarus took a breath. “Yeah. Gimme a sec…”

They moved away from the main street and around the side of the coliseum, and slowly the din of excitement faded out as they came to a less crowded area, and to a rather plain looking door at the side that read  _ Staff Only _ .

The attendant let them in through the back.

“Gimme a sec,” Mayes turned to fix Icarus’s hair. “There you go.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“Right this way,” the attendant ushered.

“Cool, cool. Yeah. Cool,” Icarus followed.

“You’re the coolest,” Mayes assured him. “You just passed your first exam.”

“Yeah, we did! We just passed our first exam!”

“You’re the coolest person I know,” Pandora agreed.

Icarus took another breath. “I’m so lame. Okay.”

The attendant walked ahead of them, ignoring them as they led the trio through a darkened corridor at the back, lit with a few torches. It wasn’t unpleasantly dark, but it wasn’t quite bright enough to see. They were brought down past a few different rooms with closed off doors, and through a few winding passages, turned around to the point where they weren’t entirely sure they would be able to find the exit again on their own.

At one point, they saw one long hall tunnel with an open archway at the end, where they could see straight out into the arena. There was the sand, the obstacles laid out for the early games, and massive rows of seating going all up the arena wall, but they only had a glimpse of it at a distance as they kept walking past.

Icarus sighed with longing. “I wanna compete here so bad!”

“You could!” Pandora encouraged. “You should!”

“You could talk to someone,” Mayes shrugged.

“Yeah,” Icarus smiled, imagining. “I would love to.”

They were led down the next corridor through a large set of double doors into a much wider space. In here, the floors were marbled, with marble columns lining walls covered in artwork and sculptures, complete with plush seating and a huge fountain in the middle.

“This is fancy,” Mayes observed.

It was much brighter in here. The attendant gestured for them to take a seat.

“Really?” Pandora blinked.

Mayes raised a brow. “...Thank you?”

“Thanks,” Icarus beamed.

“I’m sure someone will be with you soon,” the attendant nodded. “We'll let them know.”

“Okay,” Mayes nodded.

“Thanks,” Pandora called.

Icarus waited until the attendant left and closed the door, checking to see if anyone else was around before he yelled out, “This is so cool!”

“So you want, like, a pillow to scream into or something?” Mayes offered. “Just like, let it out?”

“...Yeah!”

Mayes tossed him a sofa cushion, and Icarus yelled.

Mayes grinned. “Feels good, right?”

“Oh! Yeah!”

“Yeah.”

“Ah, this is so cool!”

It was truly beautiful. The room sparkled from the reflective marble surfaces, and there were many doors in the room leading off to different places. Icarus sat on the edge of the fountain as Mayes went to look at the murals. They were depictions of gladiatorial fights and beautiful women, famous myths and legends, including a dragon painted in water with a griffon with a rider on top. As they examined them, one of the doors to a side room opened. They caught the tail end of laughing in conversation as Damaris walked out.

“Damaris!” Pandora greeted.

“Hey,” Mayes nodded.

“It’s you three! You made it,” she smiled.

“Yeah, we were not expecting…” Mayes pointed a finger that circled the room, “This.”

“Not at all,” Icarus agreed. “Thank you so much!”

“That’s okay,” she smiled. “Not part of my idea, you can thank Damianos. He said you spoke to him, and you had to meet somebody, and...? He said it would be easier if you just came back here.”

“Yeah, we have to meet Nikostratus?” Pandora prompted.

“Sure. He’s getting ready at the moment, but maybe after the games?”

“Sure, sure. We wouldn’t want to throw him off his game or anything.”

“Well, we don’t want to leave you here. What would you like to see, I guess?” she offered. She was clearly ready for the games, her gladiatorial armour on, and her hair plaited back away from her face.

Icarus jumped up. “Can I see the armoury?”

She laughed. “You know what? Why not? Why not.”

“Okay!”

“Follow me, then.”

Icarus hurried to her side. “Okay!”

She took them through another set of doors leading to another corridor, and they went down to a large armory room. She pushed the door open and gestured for them to take a look inside. Icarus was like a kid in a candy shop, filled with excitement about all the different types of weapons. There weren’t any of the personal speciality weapons stored in this room, but there was a whole rack of spears with dozens and dozens of shields in various states of repair, along with nets, and all the possible equipment gladiators could use in the games strung up all over the place.

“This is amazing!” Icarus beamed.

“This is more than we have at Delphos!” Pandora realized.

“Yeah!”

“This is the most sharp things I’ve seen in a room ever.”

“It is so, so cool.”

“You can touch if you’re careful,” Damaris offered.

“Are these real?” Pandora asked.

“Absolutely. I mean, we have blunted things for some games, but yeah. We fight for real.”

Icarus pulled out a sword and swung it around. “Yeah! This is so cool! I definitely want to compete here at some point.”

“How does one go about getting involved in becoming a gladiator?” Pandora asked.

“Is there like a free for all session?” Mayes wondered.

“Ah, well, we do those sometimes,” she replied. “There will probably be one coming up in a few weeks, you know, there’s like a winter festival coming.”

“Yeah,” Icarus smiled.

“They do a thing here for that, where people can try it out. But mostly, if you wanted to be a gladiator, you just… speak to somebody here.”

“I might do it. Depends on what day the trials or free for all is here. Because I’m usually busy during the winter fest.”

“Right.”

“I work at the Temple to Kord.”

“That’s great! Oh, did you do your exams?”

“We passed the first one!”

“We passed the labyrinth,” Mayes nodded.

“We did the labyrinth!” Pandora reported.

Damaris smiled. “You did the labyrinth? How did you find it?”

“It was so cool,” Icarus grinned.

“Come back with me, let’s get out of this dark space…” she led them back to the bright and beautiful room, away from the utility and storage areas.

“Pandora took out the crystal minotaur in one,” Icarus grinned.

Pandora brushed him off. “You guys took it down quite a bit before I finished it.”

“You conjured a giant ball of fire,” Mayes countered.

“Inside of it!” Icarus pressed.

Damaris grinned. “That’s impressive.”

Pandora looked a bit embarrassed. “It was nothing.”

“No, it was great,” Icarus declared. “It was so interesting, and you used your familiar to see where we could go,” he turned to Mayes, “And you were getting all the traps undone. It was really good.”

“I’m so pleased to hear that,” Damaris nodded. “Congratulations. You should… Do you want a congratulatory drink?”

“Oh yeah, that would be great,” Icarus accepted.

“Yeah, why not,” Mayes followed.

“I wouldn’t say no,” Pandora smiled.

“Why not?” Damarius chuckled. “You’re having a congratulatory night here. It’s on me now.”

She pushed open the door she first came out of, and gestured over her shoulder for them to follow. As they did, she took them into a lounge room for the gladiators. There were drinks on one end, with a feast laid out on a table. Ezra was in there along with a couple of other gladiators, getting prepared with assistants around them. Ezra was getting oiled up as some others were getting their hair primed and primped, ready to go out in front of a crowd. They were chatting and laughing casually with each other, with plenty of seating around for people to relax.

They saw Nikostratus lounging on one of the seats with his legs crossed. He looked up as they entered, and then looked away again, as if he was used to the occasional fan dropping by.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Damaris offered.

“Thanks,” Pandora smiled.

There were a couple of people who were not gladiators, and a few armed warriors. Pandora noticed another tiefling, wearing the first parts of gladiatorial armour. He had sky blue skin and short, curly black horns, with masses of white curly hair pushed back. He was tattooed up both arms in full white ink, depicting griffons in flight.

They also saw what looked like a half goliath woman, at least 6’5”, with the same grey skin and dark markings as a goliath, and her hair shaved down quite short. Icarus recognized them both.

“That’s Sarbadon,” he whispered, nodding to the half goliath. “And Orion!” he gestured to the tiefling.

“I’ve never seen another tiefling like that before!” Pandora whispered. “Like, obviously, my sisters and my mom, but outside of us I’ve never seen another tiefling!”

Orion looked up, and seemed quite alerted that he had just seen a tiefling as well.

“Say hi!” Icarus offered.

“You sure? I don’t know what to say!”

Icarus approached him. “Orion?”

“Hi,” the gladiator nodded.

“We’re big fans. This is Pandora, this is Mayes. I’m Icarus.”

“Nice to meet you. I’ve rarely ever met another tiefling,” he offered Pandora a hand. “Wow!”

“Hi,” she shook it. “I’ve never seen one outside of my family! Sorry, this is really cool, and really unexpected. It’s good to meet you!”

“Yeah, guests today? VIPs?”

“Yeah!”

“Get comfortable. It’s great to meet you.”

“What do you do in the arena?” Pandora asked. “Are you like, I don’t know, specialized in anything, or?”

“Well, chariot races are my specialty.”

“Chariot racing? I didn’t know that was a thing!”

“And griffon riding.”

“That’s awesome,” Mayes approved.

“Thank you!”

“Orion is very skilled at it,” Icarus smiled.

“I mean, go ahead, ask me any questions you want,” Orion offered. “I was trying to get ready, but…”

“Oh no, we don’t want to get in your way!” Pandora retreated.

“Oh, we can talk, we can talk,” he assured her. One of the assistants came over and started helping him into braces as they chatted.

“Are you performing tonight?” Icarus asked.

“Definitely.”

“There you go,” Icarus grinned at Pandora. “We’ll see it tonight.”

“Matched up against anyone in particular?” Mayes asked.

“Uh, well, probably beasts,” Orion explained. “Most likely. You’ll see me and my griffon.”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Pandora wondered, “Where are you from? Like I said, I’ve never seen another tiefling apart from my family here in Erran.”

“Um, a little bit north? Like, up past the Smoking Hills? Around sort of north of the Shaiste.”

“Okay! That’s where my mom was from, the Smoking Hills.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“I don’t think there’s many of us around here, but…”

“No.”

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“Really good to meet you!” Pandora beamed.

“And you two as well,” he turned to the others. “I promise I haven’t forgotten…”

“Sorry, it’s just a thing,” Pandora apologized.

The others waved them off, assuring them it was okay.

“It’s strange, it’s unusual,” Orion explained.

“It’s really weird, right? Like come on, why aren’t there more tieflings out in the world?”

“Well, I think you were the second one I ever saw,” Icarus grinned at the gladiator. “And third,” he nodded to Pandora.

“Well, we are uncommon,” Orion shrugged. “As you know.”

Damaris came over with drinks, handing them out.

“Thank you,” Icarus smiled at her. “We’re just getting to know Orion a bit.”

“Well great,” she smiled back. “Take your time, speak to whoever you want to. I’m not here to mind you,” she assured them.

“We want to speak to you as well, though!”

“Okay, okay. These three just passed their first exam at Delphos,” she informed the other gladiator. Orion and Damaris bantered back and forth a bit in excitement.

“Pandora ruled,” Icarus declared. “Mayes ruled.”

“Stop!” Pandora blushed.

“So did you,” Mayes looked to the triton.

“Well, we can’t tell you anything about it,” Icarus shrugged. “We’ve been sworn to secrecy.”

“Yeah, so I’ve heard, from Damaris,” Orion sighed. “Not even to people who don’t go to the school.”

“Gotta keep up the mystique, I guess. But yeah, this is an incredible experience. Thank you again, Damaris, for inviting us.”

“So grateful for this,” Pandora agreed.

“Oh, it’s no problem,” she shrugged. “Like I said, family and friends get kind of sick of taking these tickets.”

Icarus shook his head. “I’d never get sick of this.”

“Anything for Delphos students. Gotta keep that school rep.”

“School spirit,” Pandora smiled.

“Appreciate it,” Mayes nodded.

Damaris looked around. “Okay, it won’t be long until the games start, so.”

“We should probably find where you guys have seated us.”

“Yes, and then you can come back here afterwards…”

“You have afterparties?” Icarus grinned.

“Yeah. If you need to speak to Nikostratus, then, later…”

Nikostratus looked up. “Oh, you must be the people Damen said to speak to?”

“Hi,” Icarus waved.

“Sorry, uh…”

“We’ll catch you after,” Icarus and Mayes overlapped.

“You go ahead,” Pandora agreed. “You’ve got stuff to do.”

“Great, great,” he got up and finished fluffing the last of his hair. He was a big man with very broad shoulders. Someone handed him a weapon, and he passed through the door.

Just as the three of them were getting ready to head to their seats, the door opened again. They saw a tall, handsome human man, with dark stubble against pale skin. Most of his warm brown hair was streaked with grey, despite the fact that he didn’t look much older than the other students. His hair was tied back in a short ponytail. Unlike most of the Errani clothing other people wore, he had on a loose white flowy shirt and breeches, with a pair of round glasses over icy eyes.

Walking inside, he was holding hands with a small hobgoblin boy. The pair came inside, and the man glanced over. “Are you Damianos’s guests?”

“Yeah?” Mayes replied.

“I suppose,” Pandora answered. “Yeah?”

“Um, you’re sitting with me,” he explained. “You should come with me now, find the seats.”

“Sure,” Icarus smiled.

“Adrian, by the way,” he offered a hand to Icarus.

“Nice to meet you,” Icarus shook it.

“Nice to meet you,” Pandora smiled. “I’m Pandora.”

“Mayes,” Mayes followed.

“Nice to meet all three of you,” he nodded. “Come on, come through.”

“Sure,” Icarus grinned.

Adrian scooped up the kid and led the three students out and down a separate side corridor, where they emerged through a set of doors into the coliseum. They were right in the front row, just a balustrade away from the pit itself.

“This is so close!” Pandora gasped.

Icarus was almost frozen. “I’ve never been this close. I’m usually…. Over there,” he pointed thirty rows up into the crowd. “In the back.”

Thousands and thousands of people were filling the place. Adrian led them around the outside and up a couple of steps to a less crowded platformed area with seats rather than crammed rows of benches. The arena was a vast, sprawling space of sand and obstacles, a quarter of a mile from end to end, with row after row of staggered seating reaching up high along the walls of the coliseum, all filled with spectators. The roar of the crowd was absolutely infectious. As they sat down, they heard people in utter excitement buzzing all around them.

They took their seats, and they saw down at the end one of many sets of doors pushed open. A stream of gladiators came out to a booming celebration from the crowd.

  
  



	6. The Maw, Episode Six

They sat on a small platform, just above the lowest row of stone benches full of spectators. There were a handful of seats in the area, though most of them were empty. Others sat a few of the people they had seen in the interior rest area, the gladiators' family and friends. Adrain sat with them, the small hobgoblin child at his side.

There was also a woman they hadn’t seen inside. A dark skinned human woman with long dreadlocked hair, and silver wire woven through the dreadlocks, she had white eyes and a golden septum piercing. She was wearing a white powder robe with golden trim, and jewelry that dripped across her chest like constellations.

The small hobgoblin boy looked about six or seven, with curly dark hair and big brown eyes, wearing a simple white tunic in a very fine fabric, with some embellishments that shone like they could be real gold. Adrian, the handsome human man they met a moment ago, took a seat at one end of the benches, sitting the kid on his lap. “Please, go ahead and take a seat.”

Icarus scooted through. “Yeah, sure!”

“Of course,” Mayes nodded.

Pandora smiled. “Thank you.”

They took their seats, drinking in the atmosphere around them. The air was alive with noise, excited chatter, and bets taking place. They saw various staff members from the Maw moving through the rows of spectators with betting slips and confectionery, handing them out to the crowd.

Within spitting distance to their left, they could see the councilors of the city up on their platform. There was also a large and very impressive seat, which Icarus knew was reserved for the city’s figurehead Imperata, although she wasn’t present tonight. However, the platform was occupied by three councilors and a nobleman, their positions identifiable by their official robes. Two of the three were hobgoblin men, and the other a minotaur of indeterminable gender.

Icarus looked closer, and realized that one of the hobgoblin councilors looked quite similar to Alexis. “I think that’s Leonida,” he whispered. “Alexis’s dad. Because that’s the Imperata’s seat, when she sometimes comes here. And those are council members. But that guy looks like Alexis!”

“That tracks,” Mayes nodded.

“It does,” Pandora agreed.

“So that’s probably Leonida, right?” Icarus concluded.

“He was the one who found the labyrinth?”

“Yeah!”

“And defeated the naga that was inside it,” Mayes recalled. “Cool.”

“He’s so cool.”

The four of the officials were chatting idly amongst themselves. Leonida was engaged in quiet conversation with the nobleman. He looked human, with sunkissed skin and hazel eyes, his dirty blonde hair slicked back and falling down a bright purple tunic and cloak. The other two were chatting more casually between themselves, leaning back in their seats and waiting for the games to start.

Icarus, Mayes, and Pandora were easily in some of the best seats in the house. They took in the surrounding view, the colossal arena expanding around them, earning its title of The Maw. Thousands of Errani citizens cheered and clamoured, bringing it to life. The roaring din of the crowd filled the air, even the high arches that circled the arena filled with people ready to view what was to come.

A single horn blared out across the space, low pitched, from somewhere behind them. As one, the crowd fell silent as Icarus shushed his classmates. They could feel the anticipation in the air. A single bead of sweat rolled down their necks, either from the heat, or from excitement. It couldn’t be more than seconds, but it felt like an age before the south gates began to rumble.

They opened, and trumpets blared in harmonious fanfare, signalling the arrival of the true spectacles, the stars of the show. Music played from some unseen area of the crowd, amplified with magic to ring all through the open air. From out of the south gates marched the performers, contestants, and competitors.

First came the chariots, six of them taking out of the gates at great speed, and quickly running the length of the pit. Two wheeled bladed carriages mostly drawn by horses, one by a pair of lions, one by a lumbering grey skinned horned beast that kept pace with the others effortlessly, its feet thundering in the sand.

Behind them were mounted riders on decorated warhorses marching a slow and practiced procession, the gait of their mounts as much a performance as the chariots themselves.

Finally, the gladiators. The late, last dip of sunlight dazzled off an array of glittering armour and oiled, muscular skin. The Maw erupted in applause, shattering the trio’s conception of what  _ loud _ meant. The excitement was absolutely infectious as it echoed across the arena, fighter after fighter stepping out onto the packed sand.

They were able to make out individual figures they recognized, Nikostratus, Damianos, Damaris, and a couple more that Icarus knew, Aris Aoll and Capracio, and dozens of others.

At the end came a string of beautiful cohorts, throwing rose petals into the air behind them.

Icarus was screaming and cheering, erupting from his seat.

“Is it always this exciting?” Pandora laughed.

“Oh yeah!”

“Do they do this every time?”

“Yeah!”

“Wow…”

“Isn’t it great?”

“It’s pretty cool, yeah!”

“I’ve never seen it like this before, this is so close, this is so cool, yes!!”

The fighters took a slow march around the open grounds of The Maw, saluting and bowing to each end to a never ending stream of cheers and applause. The most renowned of them played up to the crowd, hollering and shouting to intimidate the first few rows. One hurtled a sword into the stands, landing it expertly into the wooden balustrade as Pandora yelped. 

Damianos stopped halfway down the arena, right in front of where they were sitting, in his full armour and infamous lion headed helmet. He let out a booming animal roar, which amplified through the coliseum above the sound of the crowd.

He winked in their direction before he continued. Icarus was in complete shock and awe.

Pandora gaped. “...He made that sound with his own mouth!”

“...He did…!” Icarus gasped, barely forming sound.

“That’s very impressive,” Mayes grinned.

“He is!”

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Icarus cleared his throat as his voice cracked.

“Take a minute.”

“Yeah!”

Adrian was still sitting beside them, but the little hobgoblin boy had stood against the barrier, cheering.

After two circuits, the gladiators took a final bow and disappeared behind the gates once more. The charioteers alone remained on the sand, and attendants flooded from other side doors, setting up a circuit of posts around The Maw as the lions and the horned beast were led away and replaced with horses. A buzz came over the arena, and they waited for the races to begin.

“I told you this was fun, right?” Icarus beamed. “It hasn’t even started yet!”

“It’s like, electric!” Pandora agreed.

“Yeah, right?”

Mayes had decided that there was no longer any point to taking notes, but they were still going to do some sketching.

Pandora kept an eye out for Orion, and spotted him on one of the chariots by himself, holding the reins. “There he is! There he is!”

“Yes!” Icarus clapped his hands. “You’re gonna see how good he is, he’s so so good.”

“I’m excited!”

Adrian leaned over. “He really is excellent.”

“I can’t wait to see him!”

“Do you come here often, Adrian?” Mayes asked.

“I… You could say fairly daily, yes,” he laughed.

“Cool.”

“I fight here.”

“Oh!”

“Are you a gladiator?” Pandora guessed.

“Yeah!” he grinned. He looked slender, and quite a waif of a man compared to the gladiators. Though he was tall, compared to the muscular forms of most of the men they had seen, he looked slight.

“What do you specialize in?” Icarus wondered.

“Magic.”

Pandora gasped.

“Oh, right,” Mayes nodded. “We’ve been meaning to catch one of those matches. Pandora is really interested.”

“Yeah!” Pandora agreed, looking at him excitedly. “Like, I didn’t know that there were arcane matches until like, two days ago!”

“They’re few and far between,” he shrugged. “I mean, you don’t get too many spellcasters, do you, but… yeah, there’s some coming up fairly soon…”

“Yeah?” Icarus prompted.

“I'd love to see it,” Pandora replied.

“We can do that!”

“You should definitely come back and see it,” Adrian invited.

Pandora nodded with enthusiasm. “I’d love to.”

“This is her first time,” Icarus nodded to the tiefling.

Adrian grinned. “Well then, enjoy the show.”

She gave a shy smile. “Thank you.”

Adrian shuffled slightly closer to them on the bench.

Icarus leaned over to the boy. “What about you, little one? How many times you come?”

The boy balled his hands in front of his face, looking very shy. “Lots.”

“Yeah?”

“Lots of times?” Pandora prompted. “What’s your name?”

He moved his hands just long enough to reply before bringing them back up. “Panos.”

“My name is Pandora! We both have Pan!”

The boy giggled.

“I’m Icarus,” the triton offered, waving. “Hi!”

The boy waved back.

“Mayes,” Mayes gave a salute.

“Hi,” the boy replied.

“Can you see properly?” Icarus asked.

“Mhm.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me know if you can’t, okay?”

“Okay.” He climbed back onto the seat next to Adrian, swinging his feet.

“You always come with Adrian?”

The boy shook his head. “No.”

“You’re lucky though, you get to be here with him.”

“Yeah,” he giggled again. “I come a lot. I really like it here.”

“Yeah, me too! I come all the time. I’m usually over there, though,” he pointed off into the stands again. “This is real cool!”

“You know, this is my first time here,” Pandora informed the boy. “Can you explain to me what’s going on?”

“...Okay,” he smiled.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. First all the chariots are gonna race.”

“Oh, okay! Is that Orion, he’s going to race?”

“Yeah!” he kicked his feet a little more. As he did, there was another loud blast of a horn.

The chariot races started, and the carriages and their horses took off at impossible speeds around the course. They took each other on in pairs, first in a display of athletics and trick maneuvers, pushing the horses and the chariots themselves to their absolute limits. Then, they raced against one another. A flash of blue skin and white hair passed them by, the tiefling Orion at the reins of one of the chariots as it drove into the side of another. The blades on the chariot wheel pierced into the spokes of the competition as Pandora cheered.

The two of them rode at close proximity, charging one another until Orion caught the other and sent it spinning out of control. Wood splintered and erupted as the chariot flipped, its driver riding to safety and horses slowing to a stop as it crashed through the sand. Orion rode his chariot in a loop around the arena and over the finish line, punching triumphantly into the air. Another cheer of satisfaction erupted from the audience as the three students applauded.

“Yeah Orion!” Icarus called.

“He’s so cool!” Pandora followed.

“Yeah, right?”

Little Panos was cheering as well. “Yeah! Yeah!”

He was jumping at the bannister, just about able to see over it at his height, his face pressed up against the side as he tilted his head upwards to be heard.

“You wanna see properly?” Icarus offered.

Panos turned around. “How?”

“I can put you on my shoulders?”

Panos’s eyes lit up. He looked to Adrian for confirmation, who shrugged. “Go on, I don’t see why not.”

Panos hurried over to Icarus, raising his hands in the air. “Up!”

Icarus hoisted him up and onto his shoulders. Panos put his hands on Icarus’s head and cheered again.

“Is that better?”

“It’s much better!” the boy kicked his feet into the triton’s chest. “Wow!”

“You’re so tall now. You’re like one of the gladiators.”

“Yeah, so tall!”

Panos held onto Icarus’s head in a way that wasn’t entirely comfortable, the boy’s legs gripping around his chest, but he was safely up there. Icarus ate a few of his candies and passed some up to the boy. Panos reached down to munch excitedly.

Adrian rolled his eyes, giving a little smile. Pandora waved a hand, and a few snowflakes appeared above the boy. Panos gasped, grabbing at them in the air.

“Oh, that’s so pleasant,” Icarus sighed as the cold relieved a bit of the Errani heat.

Pandora made a few more for them both.

“So you’re a spellcaster too?” Adrian observed.

“Yes,” Pandora shifted a bit in her seat as she smiled. “House Medeis at Delphos Academy.”

“She’s very talented,” Icarus grinned.

“I can see that,” he replied.

“We passed our final- Or, first one, of our final exams today.”

“Oh, incredible! I graduated from Medeis myself, so.”

“You did?” Pandora brightened.

“Yeah!”

“Oh my goodness…”

“Not that long ago, two years, I think.”

“I thought I recognized you. Maybe I saw you when I was in the younger years.”

“Maybe so.”

“Pandora’s top of her class,” Icarus bragged.

“Oh yeah,” Mayes encouraged.

Adrian leaned in. “Really?”

Pandora blushed, but he didn’t take his eyes off her.

“Impressive,” he grinned.

“She’s very talented,” Mayes pressed.

“It’s nothing,” Pandora waved them off. “I read a lot of books.”

Adrian looked her quickly up and down. “I’m sure it’s not nothing.”

Pandora looked away.

“She got the killing blow on two of the big guys in our final exam,” Icarus pressed.

“Okay, enough!” Pandora pushed Icarus a bit with her arm. “Look at the gladiators!”

The races with the chariots continued on, with new chariots and new competitors. Attendants raced in throughout to change up the obstacles and clear up the wreckage. As the chariot races came to an end, the last two drivers standing in non-destroyed chariots went together, running victory laps and waving goodbye on their way out. Orion gave them a special shout out as he passed by, and the three of them cheered.

“You ever think about how much they must spend on chariot repairs here?” Mayes mused.

“Probably a lot,” Pandora decided. “But look at how many people are here!”

“Oh I know, it’s just wild.”

“Yeah,” Adrian grinned. “I don’t think they’re, uh…”

“Short?”

“I don’t think they’re short of anything.”

“They’re not working at a loss here,” Icarus joked. “Gods, it’s so worth it though, this is amazing.”

“Yeah, thank you guys for convincing me to come,” Pandora smiled.

“Well, thank you for coming,” Mayes returned.

“This is one of my absolute favorite things to do,” Icarus continued. “I love sharing it with you guys.”

There was a bit of a nice pause before Adrain spoke again. “How long have you been coming for?”

“Uh… Probably about… uh… six years? Not a lot to begin with, and then quite a lot...”

“More frequently?” he grinned.

“Yeah, kind of.”

“Fair enough, fair enough. How did you find your ways into this box?”

“Uh…” Icarus smiled.

“We’re kind of…” Pandora tilted her head. “I suppose, kind of friends, with one of the gladiators.”

“Good, good,” Adrian nodded.

“Yeah, uh, Damaris. We met Damaris a couple of days ago, and she got us tickets here.”

“Well, technically it was Damianos who got us the tickets,” Mayes corrected.

“He got us tickets to the box, she got us tickets in,” Icarus clarified.

“Yeah, true.”

“Well then,” Adrian grinned. “Enjoy, enjoy.”

“I well and truly am,” Icarus replied. “This is an incredible experience.”

“You don’t get bored of seeing it over and over again?”

“No,” he answered earnestly. “It’s just such a great feat of performance and athleticism. And this atmosphere, how can you get bored of it?”

“True, true. I mean, I can’t say anything,” he put his hands up. “I don’t get bored of it.”

“No. No, never will be. I can’t wait to bring you guys back more.”

“I’d like to go again,” Pandora smiled. “Especially for the arcane events.”

“Yeah!”

“Maybe you can compete,” Adrian suggested.

Pandora blinked. “We’re allowed to do that?”

“Well, some events. Maybe you could come back and be a gladiator.”

“I don’t know about that,” she laughed.

“I mean, there’s plenty of other things they need spellcasters for here. Healing is one of them, but… Oh, look,” he gestured down into the arena between the different games.

A woman with long flowing blonde hair entered the arena, wearing a dark robe. She reached the center of the pit, striding out. She posed, and took out an arcane object or symbol from under her robes, though it was too far to see clearly.

“You’re gonna enjoy this,” Icarus whispered to the tiefling.

She held out both hands before her, the arcane item clutched between them, and then she lifted a foot to slam it down into the dirt. The dirt in the arena erupted around her in five or six different points as Pandora gasped. It erupted like a geyser, sand and rock hailing down in debris across the pit. Her hair flowed about her as she concentrated the arcane power all around the ground. Using magic, she began to shape the terrain into a whole new battlefield of hills and crevasses. The display of magic to set up the next event was as much a show as the competitors, and the crowd was going crazy for it.

“She’s spectacular!” Pandora gasped.

By the time she was done, she had shaped massive hills and difficult terrain across the battlefield, with places to hide and overhangs in the rock. It took about 25 minutes of her casting magic over and over to move the rock around, and she looked quite exhausted by the end of it, her shoulders sagging as she bowed to the crowd and headed back out.

“It’s always great when the intermission is the show,” Mayes grinned.

Pandora had been moving her hands along with the spellcaster. “I recognize some of those, but not all of them.”

“It’s kind of like when you shaped the fire around Mayes and I,” Icarus noted.

“Kind of.”

“You cast that big ball of fire, but you made it avoid…”

“But she’s kind of creating something out of nothing, it’s like transmutation magic, but like, on a huge scale. Oh…”

Adrian rested his head on a palm. “You’re a spell sculptor?”

Pandora squirmed a bit under his gaze. “Yeah… I’m an invocation wizard.”

“I hear that’s really hard.”

“It takes a lot of practice, I guess, yeah,” she smiled.

Mayes and Icarus were leaning against each other, watching the conversation unfold with great interest.

“What kind of spellcaster are you?” Pandora returned.

“I trained as a war wizard,” he replied.

“You’re a war wizard?”

“Yeah.”

“So you know how to do everything!”

“Not everything,” he grinned. “I can’t sculpt spells, so.”

Pandora fidgeted again. “It’s like a specialty of invocation… But no, you have, like… you’re an all-arounder.”

“Thank you, I think. I was gonna go into the military, but the arena just hooked me in, I guess.”

“Well I’m sure you’re fantastic on the battlefield.”

“We’ll have to come back and catch a show,” Icarus interjected.

“Well we said we were going to anyways!” Pandora defended.

“Yeah, I know,” he grinned at her. “And maybe you can compete, because I want to do it as well. We can do it together, all three of us,” he elbowed Mayes.

Mayes shrugged. “Sure.”

From where Panos was sitting on Icarus’s shoulders, the boy dumped a hand on Mayes’ head, ruffling their hair slightly.

“Um… Hi… little buddy…” Mayes moved out of the way.

“Hi,” Panos returned. He moved the hand, reaching his grubby, sticky fingers down into Icarus’s lap for more sweets.

Pandora turned to the kid. “Panos, are you going to be a gladiator when you grow up?”

“Yeah,” Panos smiled. “Yeah.”

“You gonna be taller than you are now?” Icarus grinned.

“I hope so!”

Adrian chuckled at the boy. “I bring him here, but, his mother doesn’t like to see it,” he explained. “He loves the games, so. I bring him here when I can, and a few other of our friends too.”

Pandora smiled at him. “That’s really nice.”

The spellcaster finally reached the gate at the far end of the arena, and an abundance of fighters were released into the pit.

Icarus leaned in. “This is my favorite bit.”

Forty to fifty people came out, wearing opposing armour colors. An unseen announcer declared the event to be a recreation of The Triumph of the Copper Hills, a battle of the Great War of the Three Crowns. The fighters commenced a practiced and beautiful performance against one another, three Legions of Erran taking on the troops of the Underdark, and tackling themselves across the terrain. It was a practiced military battle from three sides versus one much larger, the fighters taking the terrain into account as they swooped into the crevasses and tackled their opponents from on top of the hills. It was a true piece of theatre.

Mayes watched carefully, painting an artistic representation of it with black lines and little colors to represent the opposing figures. Out of the corner of their eyes, the students noticed the councilors quietly talking among themselves.

The dark skinned woman sitting on the other side of the students leaned over, taking a glance at Mayes’ painting. “Oh that’s beautiful, darling.”

Mayes looked over. “Thank you.”

“You’re very, very talented.”

“Thanks. It’s a hobby of mine, you know.”

“Shouldn’t be just a hobby. You’re an artist.”

Mayes blinked, and then straightened, offering a hand. “Mayes. Nice to meet you.”

“Helena,” she shook the hand, and then turned back to the games.

As they watched the combat, they saw more of the arena staff picking through the crowd, offering snacks, selling pastries and drinks, and heading up into the rows of the benches to hand them across to people. One of them came up to the isolated platform, pouring drinks for some of the people sitting further in the back before offering them goblets of wine. The three students accepted, overlapping their thanks.

“No problem,” the vendor smiled.

“You got something for the little one?” Icarus pointed above his head.

The vendor looked up at Panos. “Sure,” they held up a goblet of juice.

Panos took it and began drinking with enthusiasm, dripping bits into Icarus’s hair before resting the cup on his head. There were bits of sweet and pastry crumbs strewn through his hair as well. Panos seemed to be really enjoying the triton’s big bushy hair, using it as a pillow. Icarus might have some bruises from little feet kicking against his chest by the end of the night, but he didn’t mind. Icarus took his hands and wiggled Panos’s feet.

“Can I get you anything else?” the vendor offered. “Making any bets?”

“What events are coming up still?” Pandora asked.

“Well, we’ve still got, after, this…” she listed off a few combat events. “And then, we have the aerial fight…”

“The aerial fight?”

“Is Orion in that today?” Icarus asked.

“Yes,” they replied.

“So, what, they fly and fight?” Pandora asked.

Icarus nodded.

“What?”

“Well he told you he was on a griffon.”

“I mean, I didn’t think that he’d be literally flying and fighting!”

“They say the odds are stacked against him,” the attendant explained. “So it’s two to one on the winnings, for taking the enemy off their mounts within the first twenty minutes.”

“Alright,” Mayes shrugged.

“I’ll place a bet,” Pandora agreed.

“Starting at one gold,” the attendant nodded. “Any amount you want.”

“I’ve never betted on anything before…”

“I’ll bet three gold on Orion,” Mayes declared.

“I’ll bet two,” Icarus followed.

“I’ll also bet two,” Pandora smiled.

The attendant marked them down, giving them each a betting slip and taking their gold pieces as the trio offered thanks. “We’ll find you afterwards, if we need to.”

She carried on down the crowd, handing out several more betting slips.

“I’m not gonna lie,” Icarus admitted, “I’ve lost a lot of money at this place.”

“You’re just not very good at placing bets,” Pandora teased.

“No. I just get really excited and go for the first thing in my brain, usually.”

“People with cool names?” Mayes guessed.

Icarus shifted a bit. “Yeah, let’s go with that. That’s the reason.”

“I’m sure you watch for the talent,” Adrian replied with a grin. “Most people do.”

Icarus looked away. “When’s the next one starting?”

“Soon, I’m sure,” Mayes assured him.

“Not that long, I’m sure,” Adrian agreed.

Icarus gazed across the pitch. “It would be fun to come and compete though. I know I keep going on about it, I just can’t get it out of my head, I’m so excited about it.”

“Yes, we get it,” Pandora teased. “You want to be a gladiator when you graduate.”

“Maybe, I don’t know!”

“I think you should!”

“It’d be fun,” Mayes pressed.

“Yeah, it would,” he shrugged. “But, I got things, and, you know. Other options.”

“All of these  _ things _ I’ve got to do,” Pandora mocked.

Icarus gave her an indignant look before laughing along as they teased each other.

  
  


A couple more melee combat games passed, with individuals coming out to fight against beasts and against each other. There were several bouts of one on one sparring throughout the arena, considering what a vast space it was. Eventually they sent out another spellcaster to clear up the terrain and flatten it out, Pandora once again copying their movements.

When the arena was cleared again, two different gates opened. A tremendous hissing sound boomed out of one, and they saw the winding black scaled body of a wyvern come tearing out, followed by two more. The huge draconic creatures looked almost like dragons, but slightly smaller. From the other, feathers ruffled and proud, appeared a griffon. The creatures strutted up to one another, hissing and growling, followed by three riders who jogged out into the sand grinning and waving to the crowd. The three riders mounted the wyverns in leather saddles and took immediately to the skies, soaring around the space of the arena close to the crowd, skimming above them as people reached up and cheered.

“Try and get them!” Icarus encouraged Panos. “Try and catch!”

Panos cheered, waving his hands.

“They’re going to pick you up and carry you away!” Pandora warned.

“Naw, we’ll pull him down,” Icarug grinned. “Won’t we, Pan?”

From the other door, the main door, Orion returned to a triumphant cry of excitement from the crowd. Pandora squealed.

He moved to the griffon in the center and gave a respectful bow to it. The griffon bowed back, and he pet its back before climbing on unsaddled. It took a wild circuit of the arena before he took to the sky with a spear in his hand. The wyverns swooped and ducked beneath his blows as Orion and the griffon pursued them at speed, targeting their riders, the long dragon-like necks of the wyverns lunging for his mount and snapping at his weapon.

“Be careful!” Pandora called.

“He’s got this,” Mayes assured her.

“Oh yeah,” Icarus grinned. “He’s got this.”

Before them, a magnificent aerial display unfolded. Feathers fluttered to the ground as one of the wyverns took a bite out of the griffon’s wing. Orion managed to ram his spear into the rider, dismounting them. From the ground, another mage attendant threw their hands into the air, slowing the rider’s fall as they plummeted back towards the arena, settling on the ground like a feather.

“Oh, that is such a long way to fall!” Pandora worried. “I’m so glad they have someone on the ground…”

“Yeah, they’re not gonna let anyone die,” Icarus assured her.

“Planning for everything here,” Mayes agreed.

Pandora shifted nervously. “It’s so dangerous though!”

“You don’t need to worry,” Adrian grinned. “Nobody is going to die in the arena. We haven’t lost a gladiator in a decade.”

“That’s comforting to hear…”

Adrian had slid quite close to her. He nudged her with his shoulder before tucking a bit of grey hair behind his ear.

Pandora blushed, looking away. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

There was another pause as Icarus and Mayes looked on in anticipation.

“Would you like a top off on your drink?” he offered.

“I won’t say no,” she smiled.

Icarus turned to Mayes, mouthing  _ “I won’t say no,” _ as Mayes made a knowing face.

Adrian pulled out a wineskin, filling her glass again.

“Thanks,” she giggled.

“It’s really nice to meet you.”

Pandora was bright red. “Glad to meet you too. I’m surprised we never really met at Delphos.”

“I suppose I was quite a lot quieter, back then. A little bit more introverted, focused on my studies.”

“Same.”

“They really put you through it, in Medeis, don’t they?”

“They do, they really do! All the extra-curricular work you have to do, and all those essays…”

“It’s a lot. And there’s so much reading, the other houses don’t have nearly as much reading…”

“So much reading! They don’t understand!” Pandora agreed.

“It’s like twice the school experience they have to go through!”

“Exactly! And when the other houses get Reading Week, like,  _ Reading Week? _ When do you need  _ Reading Week, _ House Virtus? When do you read anything?”

Adrian chuckled as the other two suddenly joined the conversation.

“I didn’t know you felt this way about us,” Mayes teased.

“She’s right though,” Adrian grinned.

“I’m sorry!” Pandora offered. “It’s just... like…!”

Icarus gave her an indignant look. “You don’t think I read?”

  
“Not as much as Medeis has to!”

“We have to do a lot of learning from books,” Adrian agreed.

Mayes looked over to the triton. “Wow, Icarus. I can’t believe we’re illiterate.”

Icarus shrugged at Mayes’ painting. “I can’t even read what you’ve drawn.”

“No, but like, the number of Virtus students,” Pandora persisted. “On the Reading Weeks, they just go out and get drunk. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“...Yeah,” Icarus admitted. “No…”

“They use it as a week to like, party.”

“Yeah, I know…”

“They don’t need Reading Week,” Pandora huffed as Icarus snickered.

“Do you still have that rivalry?” Adrian asked. “With Imperatoria?”

“Yeah,” Icarus frowned. “Imperatoria  _ sucks _ , so.”

“Some of them are okay,” Pandora countered. “Mattej was good. He is a good guy.”

“Mattej is cool,” Mayes agreed.

“If I’m honest, I don’t actually get the rivalry,” Icarus admitted. “But I know I have to be…” he punched a fist in the air.

“You have to bond into the rivalry, because you’re a Virtus?” Pandora teased.

“The House spirit kind of thing,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah.  _ They suck, _ I say,” Icarus mimicked. “...When I go and hang out with Mattej.”

The four of them laughed.

“So you’re Virtus,” Adrian concluded, nodding to Icarus before looking over to Mayes. “And…?”

“Callidus,” they answered.

“Ah! One of the experts.”

“Yeah, Mayes is amazing,” Pandora smiled.

“Thank you,” they nodded.

“Icarus is amazing as well. These guys are so cool.”

“I just can’t read,” Icarus shrugged as they all laughed again.

“You know what I mean!” Pandora defended. “But you should see some of the stacks of books I come out of my seminars with.”

“Do you need them? Or is that a personal choice?”

“Yes! …No, but also yes!”

“At least we don’t have to pay for books anymore,” Adrian reasoned. “There was a time, apparently, before the school paid for everything. Students had to pay for their own materials, and well, you can imagine what the Medeis students had to pay for their spellbooks…”

“Oh my Gods,” Pandora cringed. “Can you imagine every time we had to learn a spell, we had to pay all that money outright?”

“I don’t think anyone would be able to afford to do it.”

“No!”

“No, definitely not,” Icarus agreed.

“You’d only get the really rich kids coming to Delphos.”

“Or you’d just have to do a lot of contracts,” Mayes countered.

“Either that or just be in debt for the rest of your life.”

Mayes grimaced. “What kind of school would do that to its students?”

“Honestly.”

  
  


Over the next ten minutes, they saw Orion take out the other two riders. The final time was way under their bet. His griffon chased the wyverns back into their gates, and they disappeared into the tunnels to the sides. The griffon swooped into the center of the arena, taking off vertically. As it went past, they could see Orion’s hands clutching into the feathers as he hung on. It flattened out at the top, just over the coliseum walls, over the top of all the spectators.

Orion let go, and stood up on top of the griffon, balancing as though on a wire.

“Ah! I can’t watch!” Pandora put her hands in front of her face as Mayes furiously painted the scene.

Orion stretched his hands out to the side.

“Look, look, look!” Icarus encouraged the other tiefling. “Open your eyes!”

Pandora peeked between her fingers.   
  


Orion flipped backwards into a swan dive over the arena. As he plummeted towards the ground, he casted off his armour, and two massive black bat wings emerged from underneath. They caught him moments before he hit the ground, sending him soaring up again above the crowd.

Pandora gasped as Mayes and Icarus cheered. The wings were beating hard to keep him in the air, and he bowed in the sky as the students applauded along with the thousands of fans. When he finally landed, he settled beside his griffon, as both of them took another bow before disappearing back inside.

“I’ve never seen that before, that was so cool!” Icarus cheered.

Pandora was utterly flabbergasted.

“Can you do that?” Icarus asked.

“No! ...Oh my Gods! I could never do that, and my sisters and my mother could never do that either!”

“That was so cool!”

“I knew that some tieflings have wings but I’ve never seen one, I thought it was just a story!”

“Now you have!” Mayes declared.

Adrian leaned over. “He’s impressive, isn’t he?”

“Yeah!” Pandora smiled. “I’ve never met another tiefling before today.”

Adrian grinned at her. “I’ve never met another tiefling as pretty as you.”

Pandora looked away bashfully as Panos made a retching sound on Icarus’s shoulders. The triton put a finger up to shush him.

“Quiet, Pan,” Adrian glanced up at the boy.

Icarus and Mayes engaged in conversation with Pan, shuffling away from the other two just a bit. Pandora was very glad she had changed out of her uniform and into a nicer dress.

Adrian was looking at her very dreamy-eyed. “I’m sorry if this is a bit… forward. Would you like to go for a drink sometime?”

Pandora sputtered a bit. “I- Ah- Who, me?”

“Mhm,” he grinned.

“...Are you serious?”

“Yeah, why not?”

Panos was making more retching sounds, which Icarus and Mayes worked to shush.

Pandora smiled, fidgeting a bit in her seat as she blushed. “...Yeah. That would be nice.”

“I’d like that.”

“Yeah, me too,” she giggled.

Icarus and Mayes were making a variety of silent but very excited facial expressions at each other as they eavesdropped, trying to look casual.

“I’ve got my second final coming up at some point soon,” Pandora explained. “But, um…”

“Maybe after that?”

“Yeah, that would be nice.”

“That sounds good.”

“Okay,” she squeaked, blushing bright red as her gold freckles glittered.

Adrian glanced past her, looking to Mayes and Icarus for some kind of confirmation. The pair gave him a double thumbs up at the same moment. They were able to tell that Adrian had a slightly nervous grin, and Mayes got the insight that though he was putting up quite a charismatic front, the man was a little bit terrified.

Mayes looked into his eyes for a moment before scribbling onto the page and turning it around to show him before hiding it away again.

  
  


_ Stuffed peppers are her favorite. _

  
  


Adrian nodded imperceptibly and turned back to Pandora. “Maybe some food as well.”

“Yeah,” she smiled. “I like food.”

She inwardly berated herself.  _ I like food? _

“Me too,” he smiled.

“Cool,” Pandora nodded.

“Cool.”

“Yeah, that would… be nice…”

Adrian looked back over to Icarus and Mayes, who were now openly staring. “What?”

“Nothing,” Icarus backed off, innocent. “I think it’s a great idea, especially to celebrate the second round, you know?”

“That’s if we pass,” Pandora worried.

“We will,” Mayes assured her.

“We will,” Icarus agreed.

“We’ll have to wait and see,” Pandora replied.

“We’ve got the top of House Medeis with us,” Mayes shrugged. “Of course we’re gonna pass.”

Pandora tucked her hair behind her ear, looking sheepish.

The minotaur and Leonida stood up from where they were seated on the plinth and disappeared off down the back stairs, excusing themselves. As they continued on, although the griffon fight was over, there was more melee combat, some more with quite a few soldiers, and another battle reenactment as they chatted away into the evening. It grew a lot darker, the sun setting a bit earlier at the start of winter.

  
  


It was about 8:00pm when the final event of the evening began. Icarus’s shoulders grew tired, and Panos climbed down for a bit to sit next to Adrian for a while and snack out of a little bag, getting snooze on his shoulder for a bit before Adrian woke him up for the end.

“This is gonna be the best bit,” Icarus leaned forwards in anticipation. “It’s gonna be so good.”

“It’s always the best bit!” Panos agreed.

“Yeah it is, isn’t it?”

Panos hopped up, running up to the side to rest his head on the bannister and peek over.

Pandora leaned over to the boy. “What’s happening now?”

“Final fight.”

“What happens then?”

“See The Lion of Erran!”

“The Lion of Erran?” Pandora smiled.

“Yeah!”

“Is he your favorite?” Icarus asked.

Panos simply grinned wide, giggling as Adrian smiled to himself.

“Do you wanna ride on my shoulders again, to watch it properly?”

  
“...Is that okay?”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah,” Mayes nodded. “He’s Icarus’s favorite, too.”

Panos grinned, reaching his arms into the air. “Up!”

“Up,” Icarus agreed, hoisting him back into position.

After countless combats and incredible displays of athleticism, the final event of the evening saw Damianos take center stage. The night getting late, the arena was now lit by torches dotted across the sand pit, and floating balls of arcane light hovering above the crowd, throwing them all into a gentle dim light. Only the torches in the center created a spotlight around a podium in the center. Swords and abandoned weaponry, spoils of previous displays, blood of beasts, and pieces of broken up carts littered the sand pit.

The Lion of Erran stepped up onto the small platform in the middle. He raised his hands to the crowd to rile them, sword in one, and the other donning a clawed gauntlet. The crowd went wild, as did Icarus, with Panos clutching his hair and screaming along.

Behind his helmet, Damen bellowed out another roar, this time not amplified by magic and almost entirely lost under the screams of excitement.

The north gate opened with a boom, flying to the sides. Maybe twenty attendants dragged a large iron cage on thick, heavy chains. All of the sides were blocked out.

“What’s in there?” Pandora asked.

Icarus leaned even further. “I don’t know.”

“We’re gonna find out,” Mayes replied.

They dragged the cage exhaustingly through the sand and in front of the podium, releasing the chains before all of them fled into the side tunnels. The gates came down on the tunnels behind them. Inside the cage, something slammed and thumped against the metal wall, the sound resonating throughout the arena.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Icarus wondered.

“Something new?” Pandora guessed.

Adrian grinned over. “Special event tonight.”

“Oh?”

“Something big?” asked Mayes.

“Something very big,” he replied.

“Is there an occasion?” Pandora asked.

“Just from time to time, I suppose. Putting on a special show.”

Standing on the podium, Damen bellowed out a welcome. “Hello, guests of The Maw! Tonight, I tackle a beast of legend. A fearsome, fire breathing monstrosity with three heads, that once terrorized these lands when Maglubiyet’s forces first landed here from across the seas. Tonight, I face the chimera!”

The crowd erupted once more as Icarus joined in.

Pandora blanched. “He’s going to fight a chimera?!”

“Oh yeah!” Icarus cheered.

“I didn’t think they were still around! Like, I didn’t think they existed!”

From the open gates at either end of the pit, two attendants cast a wall of glimmering magic over the arena, separating the crowd from Damianos and the beast with an invisible field of force. Adrian turned to them and explained that this was done for the safety of the crowd through a number of arcane sensors dotted around the bottom row.

“That’s really clever,” Pandora considered.

“Yeah, creates sort of… countless barrier spells to fill the entire space, seeing as it’s so large.”

“And would the sensors just amplify it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s so clever…”

“There’s some here?” Icarus asked, looking around.

“Yeah, just down below I think,” Adrian leaned over to look at the forcefield finished, shimmering like a dome over the coliseum.

The front wall of the iron cage dropped, clattering heavily to the ground. From the inside, a deep and demonic roar sounded in the voice of multiple monsters. Out of the cage prowled a three headed beast on four legs. The large head of a lion was front and center, flanked by the head of a dragon on one side and the head of a goat on the other. Its long, lion-like body ended in a huge constrictor snake in place of a tail, whipping through the air. The monstrous creature prowled forward, its haunches moving almost the size of a man.

The crowd was silent in anticipation. Damianos roared back, and took the whip from his side, cracking it towards the beast as he tempted it onto the podium. Mayes was concentrating very hard on painting the epic scene.

“He’s going to take that on by himself?” Pandora gasped.

“Oh yeah,” Icarus whispered. “He’s the coolest, right?”

Two little hands tightened in Icarus’s hair quite sharply as Panos gasped.

Icarus gave the boy a pat. “He’ll be okay.”

The chimera prowled around, back and forth, a predator considering its prey. Damianos pulled the first strike, bringing his whip back and snapping it violently towards the chimera. The two launched into an explosive display of combat, bared teeth and explosions of fire filling the pit from the dragon head, light exploding out in front of Damianos as he controlled it expertly with his two weapons.

The chimera itself emitted a strange clacking sound as it moved around, and every blow Damianos landed drew something white from its body in place of blood, like shards of painted glass. Suddenly, the beast ran to one end of the podium and took flight in the air with two dragon wings extending out of its back. The wings crackled against the forcefield of arcane energy as it hit the top, and then the sides, before it swooped down to attack.

Damianos dodged and lunged forwards with his sword, taking advantage of an opening to attack, and cleaving his sword through the neck of the dragon’s head, cutting it right off. It hit the ground with a clatter.

He turned, and a second swing clashed into the teeth of the lion’s head. It lashed out, and claws raked across his arms and chest, through to his leg. His whip came around from the other side, knocking it prone, giving Damianos the space to drive his sword home into its throat.

It stumbled to the ground swinging, teeth still clashing from its two remaining heads. Even as it collapsed, it writhed on the floor.

It stilled, and didn’t move again.

There was silence, and then the crowd erupted in cheers one final time. Most of the audience stood from their seats to applaud and holler in excitement, as did the three students. Damianos leaned on his sword, catching his breath, and holding his thigh where the stray claw caught exposed flesh. Blood was pouring down his leg. He raised his other hand into the air and pumped his fist upwards in victory.

“Are chimeras poisonous?” Pandora worried.

“Not normally, no,” Mayes replied.

“Okay.”

Chimeras were vaguely considered extinct, but they knew various creatures could be constructed. They each concluded that perhaps the clacking sound was a telltale giveaway that the beast had simply been a false version of the real creature.

However, as Damen pumped his fist up, all three of them saw a flash of red thread in their minds.

Another fiber snapping free.

The chimera’s grotesque, echoed roar sounded again from under the seats. The gladiator looked up at the beast before him, but it didn’t move from where it fell.

The crowd was calling for an encore, and the cheering swelled at the sight of two more creatures prowling out of the dark tunnels at the sides.

“Hey…” Icarus took a step back. “Hey, Adrian? That… shouldn’t be happening…”

Adrian seemed confused. “This doesn’t look right.”

“There should be the attendants coming out to help him, right?”

Damianos backed away towards the end of the arena, looking at the crowd with his normal charismatic calm gone from his face, panic written onto his expression. No clacking sound came from the two chimeras, both twice the size of the previous one.

Icarus took Panos off his shoulders.

“Um…” Mayes looked around worriedly. “Okay, so, this sounds weird, you can make chimeras, right?”

Icarus blinked. “What?”

“You can construct them. Like Pandora said, they’re normally…”

“They’re extinct,” Pandora finished.

“Yeah, sure?” Icarus prompted.

“That first one,” Mayes pointed, “You can tell, it’s a construct. Those are not.”

They circled Damianos, growling at him like hungry wolves.

“Someone get him out of there!” Pandora shouted.

Damen turned between the two of them, trying to keep his eyes on both. There was none of the usual pride and arrogance in his body language as he readied both of his weapons between them.

The crowd was loud, and they saw Damen shout something towards the gate behind him. The words were lost in the roar of the crowd, and the shimmer of magic remained up around the arena.

Adrian turned to the students, pulling Panos close. “This is not part of the show. This was not on tonight’s schedule.”

“Get me in there,” Icarus urged.

One of the chimeras lunged for Damianos. He deflected the teeth with his sword, but it flashed momentarily out of sight behind another blast of fire as the other one bounded towards him.

Adrian looked around at the crowd, not sure what to do. He cradled Panos close as the boy began to cry.

“Get me in there!” Icarus ordered.

“How do we get in the pit?” Mayes pressed.

Pandora put her hands over her face in shock. “Get him out!”

“Okay, um,” Adrian glanced to the woman nearby. “Helena, could you, um, could you watch Panos?”

He passed the boy off to her and studied the ring surrounding the arena. “Okay, uh… This forcefield…”

Damianos was knocking them both back with his sword, but there was blood pouring out of his shoulder now, with scorch marks across his fur.

“I can do this,” Adrian realized. “Okay, give me your hands.”

All three of them did. Adrian took their hands and muttered an incantation. All four of them flashed into the arena through the forcefield as he cast a teleportation spell. As they took a second to adjust, one of the chimeras bounded towards Damianos, knocking him over.

Icarus turned to grab a discarded shield and sword before bolting towards the action. “Hold up! We’re coming!”

As he did, divine healing energy radiated out of him, washing over Damen. Damianos perked up slightly as he saw them, looking a bit incredulous. “What are you doing?”

The dome of arcane energy still surrounded them. Now that they were down in the pit, they could see how it shimmered across all of the entrances and exits, trapping them inside with the creatures.

Pandora looked over to Adrian. “That was amazing.”

With that, she started running, casting out a spell to increase her defences. None of them were wearing their armour.

Damen looked absolutely shocked to see the three of them in the arena, picking up weapons and coming to help him. He used the slight distraction they had caused to take a swing. Flourishing his sword, he swung down, landing a strike on one of the chimera’s backs. Drawing his sword back, he tried to swing again, but the chimera turned on him and he missed. The creature sunk its teeth into him, the lion head tearing into his side. His armour took the brunt of it, but they could see the teeth had pierced through. The goat head moved forward to attack as well, but couldn’t get in with how the lion head had a hold of him.

In anger, the dragon head turned around to face the newcomers, expelling a cone of fire out towards Icarus. Ducking down behind the shield a bit, he was able to avoid the full force of it, but he was still burned. In retaliation, lightning shot back out from his hand, striking the dragon head across the face and leaving a lightning shaped burn scar that immediately appeared across its face.

The other chimera rounded on Icarus in an instant, charging at him as the lion head opened its jaws wide and sunk its teeth into the triton’s arm in overwhelming pain.

Adrian ran in up next to Pandora. “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it!”

He threw his hands towards a chimera. A ball of fire much wilder and far less controlled than the one Pandora had conjured just the day before erupted out of a point behind the beast, rupturing around the chimera. For a moment, they couldn’t see the creature anymore. When the flames faded away, it was clear that parts of its fur and skin had been singed off.

“Nice shot,” Pandora offered.

Mayes grabbed two smaller swords, dashing around to one of the beasts. They swung out at the snake on its back, but it whipped around them, dodging.

Lorakai’s sword appeared next to Icarus, swooping out to free himself from the lion’s jaws. The spiritual weapon knocked into the beast as he flailed at it with the extra sword he looted from the battlefield.

Pandora shot a hand out, blinding one of the creatures. On all of its heads, its vision misted over as its eyes greyed, turning the many heads around in confusion.

Adrian’s mouth fell open. “ _ Wow. _ That was smart.”

The crowd was going quiet around them, the spectators confused about what was happening, though still on the edges of their seats in interest, wondering if this was part of the show.

Damen took an attack against the blinded one, driving down into the side of one of the necks before reaching out a hand the other way, towards Icarus. As he did, the triton recognized the familiar feeling of a defensive spell boosting his reaction abilities.

The blind chimera thrashed around desperately, trying to understand what had happened to it as it flailed about only to miss an attempt to knock down Damen. Its claws came next to Mayes, missing as well. A cone of fire erupted from the dragon’s head again, into the empty space, and all of them were able to easily step out of the way this time.

The other one continued to wail into Icarus, who was already struggling to stand. Claws came for Damen, barely missing as he dodged just in time. Distracted, Damen wasn’t able to dodge the goat head, which came next to ram its horns into him. Damianos looked absolutely awful, blood pouring from multiple large wounds as he clung to life.

Adrian reached out another hand, sending another fireball to the one on Icarus. Mayes struck a blade against the creature’s side before moving the other sword straight in for a second attack, managing to deal a significant amount of damage to the blinded chimera. Icarus attempted to swing out with both of his weapons as well, but the beast was too wiley, heads swinging around as he clashed a sword against a set of enormous teeth.

Icarus laughed, doing his best to keep up the front and smile wide as he bled profusely. “Come on! We got this!”

Pandora swung her pendulum. As it began to glow red, three rays of fire shot from the focus. Alexander's words in her head, putting all of her energy into her attacks, two of the rays found their targets. She was concentrating so hard the third went wide, but the others burned into flesh.

Damen, for a second, sheathed his sword. He put a hand to his gauntlet, and it began to glow with divine energy. Raising it up, both of the creatures turned towards him, even the blinded one. The chimeras backed down as if terrified, scurrying away from him. Mayes and Icarus slashed out, cutting into the creatures as they ran while Damen did the same.

Failing to shake off Pandora’s spell, the blind chimera shot off a breath of fire in a random direction, expelling the flame towards the crowd. It missed them by a mile, hitting into the wall of magical energy instead as the forcefield cracked slightly.

“We need more help!” Adrian called. “We can’t do this!”

“Will that hold up?” Pandora worried.

“I can’t say whether it will!”

The second chimera moved around towards Adrian. As he was talking, a pair of jaws closed around him. As the lion head took him for its own, the goat head tried and failed to make its own attack. Another cone of fire came from the dragon head, burning at Pandora and Adrian both. As a tiefling, Pandora wasn’t usually as affected by fire, but Adrian was looking ragged.

The lion released him, and he staggered away. “What do you think I should do? Do you think I should try and get help?”

“I- I don’t know! I don’t know what to do!” Pandora panicked.

Adrian reached down into his robe, pulling out a small flask and passing it to her.

“What’s this?”

“It’ll help you heal if you need it,” he explained. “I’ll get help!” Then, he was gone, using the same spell as before to teleport out of the pit.

Pandora stowed it, shouting into the air. “Thanks!”

Mayes moved again, trying to carve up the chimera as best they could, landing another set of impressive blows. The creature was starting to look a bit weary, the slices from Mayes’ dual weapons down both sides of it and across its neck, starting to bleed out.

Icarus ran back a bit before grabbing the holy symbol around his neck and pointing it towards the other one. A tremendous lightning bolt struck into the creature, radiant energy exploding out to engulf the chimera for a moment. As the light faded away, it was clear the creature was significantly worse for wear, already limping slightly from the single blow.

“Yes Icarus!” Pandora cheered.

“Come on,” Icarus encouraged. “We’ve got them on the ropes.”

Another bolt of lightning, this one sickly green, came from Pandora’s pendulum. The spell proved almost as powerful as the last, and the creature that had yet been relatively untouched was now looking about as bad as the blinded one.

“Yes Pandora!” Icarus returned.

She was a bit stunned by herself. “Yes!”

Damen was still looking utterly awful, but he lumbered over to Icarus. Slapping a hand on Icarus’s shoulder, a burst of divine healing coursed through his body.

“Hey!” Icarus grinned. “That feels better!”

Damen gave a quiet chuckle, trying hard to swallow. “Yeah.”

The gladiator had none of his usual charm and charisma. He was fucking terrified.

Icarus gave him a worried look. “I’ve got your back.”

Just as they had seen in their dream, Damen summoned his own spiritual weapon. A large, double headed battle axe appeared, seemingly dripping blood as he sent it after the blinded chimera. It swung out to strike against the creature, which swiped out in turn against Mayes. Though they managed to dodge the first claw, the second and third raked across them. The creature shook its head as Mayes stumbled back, and its vision cleared as Pandora’s blindness spell faded.

The other one went for Pandora, the lion’s jaws flailing far wide as the goat head butted into her with its horns. She felt the familiar firebreath from the dragon head, but even with her natural resistances, the continued blows were wearing her down.

Mayes studied the closer chimera for a moment before striking in with their sword. One more well placed blow like that would finish it.

Icarus slid protectively in front of Pandora, shooting out a thunderwave towards the other one. The creature was knocked back, the boom of energy spreading over it as scales peeled from the dragon’s head, fur tearing off the lion body. Both of the chimeras were close to the end, now.

He took a steadying breath. “Come on, we got his,” Icarus repeated.

Pandora glanced to him before running up to the chimera. She knew it was risky, but she wanted to try to run up and touch it to cast another spell. As the heads continued to writhe around however, she couldn’t find an opening, and now she was stuck in its range.

Damen considered his options, and decided Mayes had the other one covered. He ran up beside Pandora, swinging twice to land two blows at the creature hissed and growled.

The one by Mayes, no longer blinded, snapped its heads around towards them furiously. Finally seeing them and deciding Mayes had been the source of all of its pain, it began to wail down on them. Lion’s jaws clamped down through them as the goat head swung around, ramming into their side. Finally, it raised up onto its back feet to slash out with its claws, the talons scraping into Mayes as they managed to step back and just avoid the worst of the blow.

The other one dove for Pandora, and she threw up a glimmering energy, a shield that looked quite similar to the forcefield around the entire arena. The creature’s teeth cracked against the shield, but it couldn’t get to her. A second blow bounced off the shield before the creature decided to go for Icarus instead. As the claws came for him, Damianos swung once more into the chimera. Striking across the hindquarters of the lion body as Icarus tried to send out another spell, it was clear that the gladiator was quite seriously injured.

After taking three consecutive hits from the other creature, Mayes unfolded both swords, driving one up as the other slammed into the lion’s jaw, tearing it to shreds. Out of the corner of her eye, Pandora glimpsed the other chimera fall, the central head torn apart by the dual blades.

“Go Mayes!” she shouted.

The body crumpling behind them, Mayes turned to run and join the fight against the remaining creature.

Icarus sent his own two blades towards the final chimera, and while his spiritual weapon couldn’t find a landing, his physical weapon slid through solid flesh. The creature lumbered forwards on its haunches, letting out a desperate growl from all three heads.

Pandora clutched at her wounds, and thought of Alexander’s words again.  _ Back to basics. Do something simple. _

Swinging her pendulum, familiar bells rung out around the arena. She felt the arcane energy balling in her chest, ready for her to cast a massive spell, but she channeled it into something small. The creature crumpled in on itself, dying from the inside. The heads imploded, skulls turning in as it collapsed to the dirt.

The crowd was absolutely silent for a moment, staring down at the display.

And then it erupted, the audience out of their seats, cheering, applauding, and screaming.

Icarus jumped, as if he had forgotten their surroundings, staring up in surprise at the crowd.

Adrian teleported back into the arena with seven other people. His mouth dropped open as he looked at the display of chimera bodies. “I guess we weren’t as needed as I thought!”

“Or you just weren’t fast enough,” Icarus chuckled.

Damen dropped to one knee, and spit up a pool of blood.

“Hey, you good there big guy?” Mayes worried.

“Mhm… Ugh… Been better…” he moaned.

“Let’s get you some healing,” Icarus urged.

“Mhm.”

The crowd continued to cheer. They thought nothing of this but a spectacle as the forcefield around the arena dropped down and disappeared. They were ushered by those who had appeared with Adrian into one of the tunnels, back to the underground of the arena. There were people working quickly and panicked in the tunnels. The scene was manic, and they quickly lifted Damianos away from them to carry him off down a tunnel for medical help.

Another attendant ran up to them. “Who needs healing?”

“Pandora,” Icarus answered as the tiefling held up a weak hand.

“Come this way, come on, please… Any of you.”

“I’ll take it,” Icarus agreed.

“I won’t say no,” Mayes followed.

They were ushered down into a quiet, simple looking private room, with a few beds to sit on the edge of. “Are you still standing, or do I need to get someone to see to you?” the attendant pressed.

Pandora shook her head, raising a shaking hand once more.

“Just, just sit then, just sit… Um, here, take this…” they brought a salve over, smearing it on a few of their wounds. It helped ease the pain, and they felt themselves come back a bit.

The adrenaline had gone, and Pandora collapsed onto the bed, looking terrible. The healer disappeared from the room, leaving the students alone with Adrian for a moment.

Adrian was breathing heavily. “I have no idea what’s going on. I can’t thank you enough for… Might have lost Damen if you hadn’t jumped in to help.”

“So that wasn’t part of the show?” Pandora winced.

Adrian shook his head.

Mayes eyed him. “Is there any potential that he’s pissed off the council?”

“...I don’t imagine so, no,” Adrian replied. “What makes you say that?” 

“What makes you say that?” Pandora overlapped.

“Just a thought,” Mayes frowned. “Just… They… The couple of them were sort of talking more seriously amongst themselves. They just kind of left before all that happened. It could mean nothing, but…”

“Very consequential, we’ll bear it in mind,” Adrian nodded. “But… I’d hate to make any accusation like that against the council.”

“No, I know. I’m just thinking.”

Icarus touched his holy symbol. It began to glow for a moment, and everyone in the room started to feel a little better.

Adrian sighed. “That feels better.”

“Much better,” Mayes agreed.

A bit of color returned to Pandora. “Thank you.”

Adrian came over to her, and cupped her face. “The flask I gave you?”

“Yeah?”

“Drink it, you’ll feel better.”

She did.

“Gods…” He shook his head. “Panos! I need to find Panos!” he realized. “Excuse me,” he disappeared out of the room.

Icarus was quiet for a beat as the door closed, staring out into the room. “You all saw the red string, didn’t you.”

“Mhm,” the other two replied.

“Someone’s got it out for that guy,” Mayes concluded. “And us, maybe.”

“I don’t think us,” Icarus countered. “I think we’re just…”

“Just consequential?” Pandora guessed.

“Caught in it,” he sighed. “Right place, right time, though.”

Mayes crossed their arms. “I suppose so.”

“Just like in the dream,” Pandora frowned. “Right place, right time.”

“Hey, I mean, it’s a good thing he got us a booth so close to the action.”

“Very convenient.”

“Yeah…”

“Fate’s got funny ways of doing things, huh,” Icarus tried to smile.

Pandora managed to sit up a bit more. “So what did you say about the governors?”

“I don’t know,” Mayes shrugged. “It’s just this kind of thing that… You study my kind of stuff, and you learn to be a little bit suspicious of tiny things that people do. And like I said, it could be nothing, but…”

“You mean because Leonida and the other person left? Before everything happened?” Icarus clarified.

“Yeah, it just… Strikes me as a little bit strange that you’d leave before… You know, the most spectacular event of the show?”

“True…”

“I suppose, if they’d set it up,” Pandora thought, “Wouldn’t they want to see if it worked?”

“Or they had to go attend to something, to help set it up.”

“This is all speculation, though,” Icarus warned.

“Exactly, I’m not- ”

“No, I know, I know… You’re not actually saying that’s what happened.”

“I’m just trying to keep it in mind.”

“Yeah, no, things… Good thing to keep in mind… You guys were spectacular out there, by the way.”

“You were amazing as well, Icarus,” Pandora returned.

“Thanks,” he smiled.

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

They were left in the room for another fifteen minutes before the healer returned with a few others. The team attended to their wounds thoroughly and properly for another half hour before they left, and the three of them took an hour to rest in the beds. They were asked to stay put, as the attendants explained they didn’t know what else could be dangerous around the arena.

“Is Damen okay?” Icarus asked.

“He’s… Being tended to.”

“Okay.”

“Can we see him?” Pandora asked.

“Um, perhaps shortly,” the attendant replied. “I think we can take you back to a livelier area. I think you’re probably going to be… a bit stressed and alone, here. If you want. I can leave you three alone.”

“No, do you know what,” Icarus stood, “Let’s get out of the box room.”

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed.

“Okay,” Pandora followed. “I’ll stay with you guys.”

“Yeah, that’d be good,” Icarus encouraged.

The healer led them back to the marble waiting room with the fountain, and back into the lounge area where the gladiators had been earlier before the match. The room was empty, save for Damaris and Nikostratus, both looking quite stressed.

“Oh, thank Gods!” Damaris sighed as she saw them.

“Hi,” the trio chorused.

“Oh, I’m so happy Adrian was able to get you into the arena!”

“Yeah, me too,” Icarus replied.

“We, we couldn’t do anything, in the wings.”

“Don’t worry, we got it.”

She came over and put her arms around the three, Icarus and Pandora gratefully returning the hug as Mayes stiffened a bit.

“What was that?” Pandora asked as Damaris pulled away. “Like, obviously you guys don’t have three chimeras just backstage…”

“No, no, the first one…” Damaris put up her hands, “I’ll put my hands up, that was constructed, that was just for the show, you know? Um, those other two, nobody can figure out where they came from. They weren’t kept back here.”

“Has Damen got many enemies?” Icarus worried.

“Not that I know of. I know…” she sighed. “I know he made some enemies back when he was in the army, but that was a long time ago. Seven years ago, or something.”

“Someone who would have enough strings to pull to be able to sneak two chimeras into the arena,” Mayes thought.

“Yeah. And I don’t know, I know…” she sighed again. “I probably shouldn’t be saying any of this stuff… I know there’s some people he owes money to and stuff, but…”

“I mean, that's not really a good way of getting your money back off someone,” Mayes reasoned. “If you try and kill them with monsters.”

“No, that’s a good point.”

“Has anyone sort of taken a look at where the chimeras appeared?” Pandora asked.

“Just right in the tunnels.”

“They just appeared in the tunnels?”

“Right in the two tunnels at the side. There’s footprints, and there’s nothing else. Like they were summoned in, but I don’t even know if that’s possible.”

“I mean, it might be? I’m not an expert, but maybe we could take a look?”

“Yeah, maybe. But for now, relax, there’s people everywhere. You’ll get shuffled out of the arena if you keep walking around now. They’re emptying the spectators, and luckily, everybody thought that was a part of the show.”

Mayes turned to the other person in the room. “Nikostratus, right?”

The man glanced up. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, um… Kind of weirdly on the same subject as this, Damen said that we should talk to your sister? About some stuff?”

“Oh, yeah. She was in the box with you guys, did you not speak to her?”

Mayes leaned back in realization. “Helena?”

“Yea, that’s her.”

“Oh. Do you… Is she still around?”

“Sure, we’ll find her.”

“Thanks.”

He nodded. “Good job. Impressive. You’d make great gladiators.”

Pandora chuckled. “Thanks.”

“Do you think?” Icarus straightened.

“Yeah,” Nikostratus shrugged. He towered over them, nearly 6’4”. He gave Icarus a pat on the head, knocking some of the sweets out of his curls, and left the room.

“You’re never washing your hair again, are you,” Pandora teased.

Icarus considered the mess on the floor. “No, I really will. There’s so much candy in it.”

“Oh, where’s Panos?”

“Adrian went to go find him. He was up with Helana, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

Icarus frowned. “That’s not a good thing for a kid to see.”

“No, that was… That was a lot for a kid to see.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Damaris shuddered. “Just glad nothing worse happened. You guys can help yourself to the food and drink, whatever you want,” she gestured to the spread, rubbing her forehead with the other hand. “This isn’t quite how we wanted this experience to go for you.”

“Hey, I kept saying I wanted to fight in the arena, so,” Icarus grinned.

“You got your wish,” Mayes nodded.

“There you go,” Pandora smiled. “Now you have.”

“You just said it too many times,” Damaris teased. She laughed a bit, and then sighed again.

“You alright?” Icarus asked.

“Yeah, exhausted.” She was slightly sweaty and worn out from performing in the arena. “But you know, I’m better off than Damen right now, so.”

“You did great, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

“Real good show,” Mayes nodded.

“So impressive,” Pandora agreed.

She shook her head. “It feels like years ago now.”

“I’m sure.”

“Yeah, long night,” Icarus grinned.

Looking around the room, he spotted a few instruments. It seemed that they might have musicians play for them some nights, with a few scattered musical items in one corner and lyre up on a shelf. Icarus went over to it, plucking and tuning it before starting to play one of the songs he knew from the Temple of Kord.

“That’s beautiful,” Damaris complimented.

“Nice to relax with.”

“It is nice,” Pandora smiled.

“I’m sure this keeps happening,” Damaris apologized, “But sit tight, I’m gonna go check on Damen.”

“No worries,” Icarus nodded.

“Send him our best wishes,” Pandora offered.

“Send him through,” Mayes added. “If you can make it.”

“It’s not a problem though, if you can’t,” Icarus assured her.

She left, and after another fifteen minutes or so, Nikostratus returned with Helena. She smiled at them each in turn. “You did incredible. What a display.”

“Thank you,” Mayes nodded.

“I hear you wanted to speak to me.”

“We didn’t properly get to talk in the box,” Pandora agreed. “I’m Pandora, and this is Icarus…”

“Hi,” the triton smiled.

“Mayes,” Mayes nodded.

“Mayes, with the beautiful painting,” Helena recalled.

“...Do you want one?”

She put a hand to her chest. “I would be absolutely honored.”

Mayes opened their sketchbook, the battle reenactment on one page and Orion falling from the griffon on the other. “You can choose between these two.”

She looked over. “Oh, they're both incredible. I feel… Orion and his griffon is a much more unique memory for you.”

She took the Copper Hills one. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“Will you sign it?”

Mayes blinked, a bit confused.

“Every painting needs a signature from the artist,” Helena reasoned.

“...Sure,” they signed.

“You’re so talented, Mayes,” Pandora offered.

“It’s true,” Icarus followed.

“Thanks,” they held out the other to Pandora. “Do you want the Orion one?”

“Don’t you want to keep it as a memory?” she replied.

“I paint a lot, so. I can’t keep them all.”

“Only if you’re sure. Can you sign it?” Pandora smiled.

Mayes chuckled a bit and did so. “Yeah, take it.” They turned to Icarus, passing over another drawing. “The Damen one is for you, anyway.”

Icarus went a bit red before taking it, whispering his thanks. Noticing the reaction, Helena raised a curious eyebrow.

Icarus cleared his throat. “Thanks, this is really cool. Sign it?”

Mayes signed.

“Speaking of Orion, is he okay?” Pandora worried.

“Oh, he’s absolutely fine. The gladiators are all fine,” Helena assured them. “Damen, I hear, will be okay.”

“We’re owed money,” Icarus realized.

“We are owed money,” Mayes agreed.

“From…? Oh yeah, from the bet!” Pandora recalled.

“We should cash that in before we leave, but more importantly…” Mayes gestured for them to get on with it.

“We’ve got some questions,” Icarus explained. “That we were told you would have knowledge on. Regarding necromancy, and spirits.”

“Okay,” she nodded.

“And dreams,” Mayes added.

“I can certainly try.”

Nikostratus leaned back against the wall. “My sister is a scholar. She studies the art of soothsaying.”

“Really?” Pandora straightened. “That’s really interesting, where do you study that?”

“I currently work for the council,” she explained, “But I have studied all over Caldera.” She sat down on a sofa, pulling her feet up onto the chair to sit cross legged, her robe floating about her. “So, tell me about what you need to know about.”

“Well, we… It sounds strange, but we’ve had a shared dream,” Icarus began.

“Okay.”

“And… in this dream, we had images of red threads, three women, scissors…”

“Ah.”

“Controlling life, death, fate…”

“And a horrible monster,” Mayes added.

“Father of All Monsters,” the other two explained, speaking the name in Ancient Errani.

“Hm,” Helena considered. “It seems you may have had a run in with the Moirai.”

“The what?” Pandora asked.

“The Moirai.”

“The Moirai?”

“Some call them Ladies of Fate, but other people believe they’re old ladies, or some sort of other entity. Very little is known about them, or what they do, but… I personally consider them deities, deities of prophecy.”

“Okay…”

“There’s lots of contradicting information about them. There’s no one living, until perhaps you three right now, who could prove to have seen them or communicate with them. But there are a few ancient journals discussing these three figures and their red strings of fate…”

Icarus examined her for a moment. She wasn’t giving off an untrustworthy vibe, though she did have a bit of a distant look in her eye. It wasn’t inherently untrustworthy, but it was very unnerving. However, her openness and body language suggested she believed she was being truthful.

He sighed, and decided to tell her more. “Before the chimeras appeared, the three of us saw a red thread snap.”

“Oh.”

“Again, like a collective vision,” Pandora explained.

“In our shared dream, we saw Damen covered in blood,” Icarus continued. “With his throat slit.”

“Interesting,” she mused.

“And he seemed to know the person who was masquerading as the creature,” Pandora added.

“But not when he was awake,” Mayes elaborated.

“Not when he was awake. But in the dream, he seemed to know who they were.”

“Hm…” Helena leaned back in her seat. “Well these Ladies of Fate, although they are sometimes accounted as three old crones or three young beautiful people, varying accounts… they carry a roll of red thread, a staff, a sharp blade… and with these, they point from their demi-plane of fate. And some people say, simply see what is going to happen in the future. Others say direct it, like puppeteers. But the dreams, not to worry I hope, are not a prophecy exactly as they might come true. What they show you is symbolism, as often you do find with soothsaying. What you’re seeing is not an event that will take place, but events that represent things that might happen. You say you saw a red thread snap today, but no one died. Perhaps, instead, you’re being directed on how to…”

“Prevent?” Mayes suggested.

“Prevent, or change, the course of fate.”

“Wow,” Icarus chuckled. “I guess I’ve always weaved my own destiny, so. It sounds about right.”

“It’s strange, though… I mean, some people say the Moirai are agents of the Gods, and others, of the Devils. Some say independent of both. I’d like to believe so. But… giving prophecy… very rare. Makes me very curious about you three…” she stared off at them.

“Should we tell her about what we saw on the steps as well?” Pandora whispered.

Icarus thought, and then nodded. “Yeah.”

Pandora turned back to the woman. “The evening before we all had the collective dream, the three of us saw… something else. Like, it wasn’t a dream, we were all very much awake. But the ground sort of shook and cracked open, green light poured from it, and there were screams and faces and… like, we couldn’t breathe properly, we couldn’t walk…”

“Felt slow,” Icarus added.

“Everything… everything felt slowed down, like we were sort of… I don’t know, like it was some sort of apocalyptic event, or something.”

“That was before the dream.”

“Yeah, that was the very first thing that we noticed.”

“And then,” Mayes continued, “As soon as we noticed it was over, there was no evidence of it ever having occurred.”

“Yeah, and conveniently, no one else was around to see it.”

“The day we met, too,” Icarus smiled.

“Yeah.”

“Ah,” Helena grinned with interest. “The day you met… I can’t pretend to know how to explain this one, but, if I was to take a wild guess… perhaps a choosing. If you’ve been chosen for this prophecy. Perhaps that was you being selected, the day you met. The three of you.”

“That’s a very dramatic way of choosing,” Pandora frowned.

“I can’t say for sure.”

“I don’t know, it had a very necromantic vibe.”

“Perhaps worth looking into more, then.”

“At least, I have my tutor looking into things.”

“Well, what I would…” Helena trailed off, considering them. “The only thing I can think to suggest to do is, try to remember your prophetic dream. Try and interpret the symbols they were giving you, and see what they could mean. And what, perhaps, the dream wants you to do.”

“What would the symbol for The Father of All Monsters be?” Icarus worried. “It was incredibly tough, and… there’s no way we could have taken it if we tried.”

“Well I’d hope that wouldn’t manifest as a real monster…”

“Yeah…”

“But it wasn’t completely a monster,” Pandora recalled. “It turned into a person.”

“Perhaps it represents a person who has truly monstrous goals,” Mayes suggested.

“Maybe.”

“There we go,” Helena smiled. “You’re already interpreting the signs. That’s exactly the thing you might need to do, especially if you have more dreams.”

“It’s like a cypher,” Mayes reasoned, “But for events, and not codes.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“You think we’re gonna have more dreams?” Icarus wondered.

“You could. This could be a one off event. Like I said, there’s so little known…”

“Yeah, sorry…”

“It’s okay. Please, ask your questions. It could represent people, places, events. People dedicate their whole lives to interpreting signs.”

Icarus turned to Mayes. “You painted the room, didn’t you?”

“I painted the creature,” they replied.

“The creature?”

“Yeah. I remember what the room looked like…”

“Do you think you could paint that? The symbols on the floor, and…?”

“What, the hydra?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I can try…” Mayes took a few minutes to paint, and as soon as they began, the images manifested in their mind with no problem before showing Helena.

“So if we’re looking at this as a symbolism thing,” Icarus reasoned, “And that The Father of All Monsters is potentially an evil person. Then maybe, this is a symbol of cutting off one head and more appearing.”

“Or perhaps an organization.”

“Perhaps,” Helena nodded.

“Or someone who can just disguise themselves,” Pandora added.

“Or maybe just a hydra,” Icarus chuckled.

“Or maybe just a hydra,” Mayes sighed. “Fantastic.”

Helena smiled. “I really hope the three of you figure this out. For your sakes, for Damianos’s sake… I would love to help more if you have more questions, but I'm not sure there’s anything else I can tell you now.”

“No, you’ve helped so much,” Icarus nodded. “Thank you so much.”

“Where would we be able to find you?” Mayes asked. “If we did have more questions.”

Helena thought, and asked for a piece of paper. Mayes ripped one out, handing it over, and she gave them an address from somewhere in Erran. “It was wonderful to meet the three of you. If nothing else, I just want to hear your progress on this, this is fascinating.”

“Thank you very much,” Pandora replied.

Mayes studied the woman. Helena certainly had an academic interest in the situation, perhaps more than she was interested in their safety, but she didn’t seem insidious either.

“Thank you so much,” Icarus repeated. “You’ve been incredibly helpful.”

“I hope to see you again,” she returned.

“I’m sure you will,” Mayes nodded.

“Best of luck with it.” She leaned up to pat Nikostratus on the cheek. Her brother was almost a foot taller than her, and she had to reach a bit. “I’ll see you later.”

She disappeared out of the room.

Nikostratus shrugged. “Cool. Well, that’s gonna please her for ages.”

“Thank you for introducing us,” Icarus replied.

“That’s okay. Anything for Damen, he’s… A good friend, so.”

“He’s a good guy,” Pandora agreed.

“Yeha, real good guy,” Mayes followed.

Icarus smiled. “Yeah.”

“With that, I’m gonna go check on him,” Nikostratus moved to the door, “So…”

“Sure.”

“Do you wanna come?”

“Please,” Mayes accepted.

“If that’s okay,” Pandora replied.

He gestured them to the door. “Yeah, why not. Everyone will probably tell you not to, so I’m gonna say yes. Try to be a yes guy.”

The trio chuckled. “You’re like the cool gladiator,” Mayes teased.

“Thank you.”

Nikostratus looked almost exactly as good as he had earlier, save for the slightest bit of sweat on his face where the oil the attendants lathered him in had dripped down. He led them out of the room and through the marble waiting room down a couple of corridors to the infirmary area.

Pandora whispered to the others as they walked. “I wonder if Damen saw the red threads that we saw.”

“Maybe we can ask him,” Mayes replied.

“Yeah.”

Nikostratus reached a door and knocked. There was a grumble from inside, and he pushed the door open. “You look like shit.”

As the trio of students gathered in the doorway, Damianos very much did look like shit. He was lying in a bed, bruises across his face and burned fur over his shoulder. Where the winter coat had burned away, they could make out a tattoo of two axes on his shoulder. He was roughed up, with bandages all over, laying there and grumbling. “Oh, you brought my saviours. Come on in…”

They did. “How are you doing?” Pandora worried.

“I’ve been worse,” Damen sighed.

“...That’s not great, man,” Mayes chuckled.

“No,” he admitted. “But I’ve been worse.”

“Let me help with that, okay?” Icarus offered.

Damen blinked at him as Icarus held his holy symbol, familiar healing magic spreading through the room once more. The symbol of Kord began to gently glow, and over the next twenty minutes or so, he began to look a bit better.

Damen let out a long sigh. “That feels good. Love a bit of divine healing. Nice one, kid.”

“No problem.”

Damen chatted with Nikostratus for a bit before the other gladiator left. “I’ll leave you to it, lots to do.”

“Thank you,” Pandora waved as he left.

Damen shuffled up slightly in bed, propping a pillow behind him with a groan. “Not how I was expecting to speak to you today.”

“Don’t suppose you expected to fight three chimeras today, either, so.”

“No, not really.”

“I mean, the first fight was very impressive,” Mayes offered.

“Oh, thank you.”

Icarus was staring at him. “Did you see a red thread?”

Damen shook his head. “Not this time.”

“The three of us did. Just before the chimeras appeared. It snapped.”

“...Shit.”

“Yeah,” Pandora frowned.

“Well… I’m still alive, so.”

“Yeah,” Icarus snodded. “Talking with Nikostratus’s sister. Potentially we’re changing… that…”

“That’s good to know. Glad to have you here.”

“Is there anyone you potentially pissed off, that you think could do something like that?” Mayes asked.

“Um… Do something like that? Not that I know of. Um, yeah, but… Person like me has always got people he’s pissed off. Sorry, this… I feel rough.”

“Sorry, we’ll stop grilling,” Icarus offered.

“No, no, it’s fine, um… I just don’t have much in the way of answers for you, I was… Shocked as you were.”

“We can see that.”

“I thought they were pulling some sick stunt on me, trying to make me fight something else.”

“So… how long has the chimera stunt been planned?” Pandora asked.

He thought. “What’s it take to make one of those things… Three months?”

“Okay…”

“Yeah, numerous people in the arena worked on it.”

“I guess it’s been... Outside of the arena, kept fairly hush? So the audiences don’t know about it?”

“Yeah. Yeah I mean, it was a surprise. Big show.”

“So that kind of narrows down the people who were involved, and who would have known about it. Unless someone’s been spying.”

“Or leaking information.”

“Yeah. So I guess it doesn’t narrow it down at all,” she sighed.

“Good thought, though,” Icarus encouraged. “But, at least, you’re okay.”

“Yeah. Doubt I’ll be fighting for awhile,” Damen frowned, “But…”

“You deserve some time off, anyway,” Pandora reasoned.

Damen chuckled. “Time is money, kiddo.”

“Well, they should be paying out a big amount of sick pay for this.”

“Maybe they will, maybe they will.”

“Thanks for the front row seats, at least.”

He grinned. “I thought I’d put you right there next to Helena, so.”

“We didn’t quite realize who she was until after, unfortunately,” Mayes admitted. “But we got talking to Adrian.”

“He was really nice,” Icarus smiled.

“And little Panos.”

“He was cute.”

Damen’s face grew serious. “Where is he? Panos?”

“He was with Helena…” Pandora recalled.

“Adrian went to go find him,” Mayes added.

“Yeah, Helena was looking after him, but then Adrian went to go get him from her.”

As they were talking, they heard footsteps from down the corridor. There was no knock this time, the door handle simply turning to push open, revealing Adrian and Panos.

Panos looked terrified, and then relieved. “Daddy!”

He ran over, jumping up onto the bed.

Damen groaned with the impact. “Please, no!”

“Hey, hey,” Icarus reached forward to guide Panos down.

“No, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Damen brushed him off, and cradled Panos close. “I’m okay kid. I’m okay, don’t worry about it. Daddy’s okay.”

Panos wrapped his tiny arms around Damen’s neck, clutching onto him. Damen’s emotions nearly broke for a second before he swallowed it down.

“Didn’t these three do amazing, huh? Putting on a big show for you.”

  
Panos released him and sat on the edge of the bed to turn to the others. “You three were amazing! You were great! That was really scary…”

“Well one day you’re going to be just as scary,” Pandora encouraged. “And you’re going to beat up creatures like that,” she made a few more snowflakes for him.

The boy giggled, leaning back against Damen who groaned again before patting him.

“Careful,” Pandora warned.

Damen sat up, hugging the kid against his chest. “If there’s anything we can do for you three as a… thanks, an apology…”

“I got to fight in the arena,” Icarus grinned. “You don’t need to apologize for anything.”

“I think you’ve made his year,” Pandora smiled. “That was probably better for you than passing the first task. Which he did, by the way.”

“Oh yeah, we passed our first task,” Mayes reported.

“Oh, congratulations,” Damen replied. “That sounds amazing, I’ve got no idea what that means, but… Congratulations.”

“Thank you. Appreciated.”

“One step closer to graduating,” Pandora explained.

“Maybe you can fight in the arena again sometime,” Damen shrugged. “As a thanks.”

“Under different circumstances,” Mayes specified.

“Yeah, under circumstances that aren’t… you know,” he drew a finger across his neck and stuck out his tongue.

“Slightly more controlled,” Pandora agreed.

“I mean if other things are on the table,” Icarus considered, “i’d definitely like to try and ride a griffon at some point.”

“Yeah, that’d be so cool,” Pandora agreed.

“Right?”

“You’d have to speak to Orion about that,” Damen grinned. “There’s not exactly griffons all over the place.”

“True, true.”

“Spiro’s the only one, so.”

“Spiro?”

“Mhm. He’s like, attached at the hip to that thing. Pretty sure he’d sleep in the stable if he could.”

Icarus chuckled. “Well, yeah, you were amazing.”

“Well, so were you. Here’s me hyping up how good I am at fighting, and,” he groaned again, “You three just swoop in and… You tore those things to shreds.”

“Well, for you it was three against one,” Pandora reasoned. “That’s not really fair. And you were kind of beat already.”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “I should have done better.”

“You did great,” Mayes countered.

“I think you did really great,” Icarus agreed.

“Thank you. Listen, kids…” he settled a bit more into the bed, “This won’t be the last time we’ll talk, okay? We got a lot to talk about.”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“But we’ll leave you to get some rest,” Pandora offered.

“Thank you,” he replied. “Thank you, I can’t thank you enough, I just…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Icarus smiled.

Damen held his son close to his chest.

Icarus leaned over to the boy. “Hey, you gonna look after your dad now?”

“Yeah,” Panos smiled.

“You’ve got to do all the fighting now,” Pandora warned.

“Um…”

“But don’t worry,” Icarus smiled. “I think you’re really strong.”

Panos seemed a bit worried as he looked at Damianos. “I don’t think Mama would like that.”

Damen ruffled the boy’s hair, grinning. “I don’t care what your mother says. I don’t care at all. If you want to be a gladiator, you can be a gladiator.”

“I think you’d be a great, great gladiator,” Icarus smiled.

Panos fidgeted. “You’d be a great gladiator.”

“You’re right,” Pandora agreed. “He would be a great gladiator. Good idea, Panos.”

Panos slid off the bed to hug Icarus’s legs. Icarus hugged him back, lifting him up once more to throw him a bit and catch him safely. “Maybe you can sit on my shoulders again the next time.”

“Yeah! You gonna come again and see? You gonna watch?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it okay if we sit with you?” Pandora asked.

“Mhm!” he grinned.

“We wanna come see the magic fight,” Mayes explained. “See Adrian fight.”

Adrian, grinning as he loitered in the corner of the room, nodded back. “Well, you three were spectacular.”

“We have to thank you for getting us in there. I mean, really heroic, that you were able to set the stage for us.”

“That’s a really powerful spell,” Pandora explained. “It’s really, really difficult to do, so. It was… That was very impressive.”

“Thank you,” Adrian smiled. “You know, I’m just glad that I could. I didn’t know if it was gonna work past that barrier.”

“It did,” Mayes replied. “And it was awesome.”

“Yeah it was,” Icarus agreed.

He shook his head. “I just dread to think if it hadn’t…”

“Well, we don’t have to. Everyone was in the right place at the right time.”

“How convenient,” Pandora mumbled.

“So, um…” Icarus looked between Adrian and Pandora, “Mayes and I are gonna step outside for a second, I think you two wanna… arrange…”

“What?” Pandora sputtered. “I… no… I can go with you!”

“You guys were talking about food and drink, so,” Icarus quickly fled into the doorway, pulling Mayes along.

Damen looked between the two left behind. “Oh… Okay. No, this is my room, you two leave.”

Adrian put up his hands. “We will leave you to it.”

“Bye Damen,” Pandora replied. “Bye Panos,” she pinched his cheek.

The boy ran to her and gave her a hug around the waist.

“Aw, hey buddy,” she smiled.

“I’ll see you again, Pandora!”

“You will, Panos.”

He seemed to be very into the name thing. She offered a fistbump. “Name buddies.”

He enthusiastically returned. “Name buddies.”

Icarus smiled into the room from the doorway. “See you later, little cub.”

There was another  _ oof _ from Damen as Panos landed again.

“Look after your dad, okay?” Pandora called.

“Yeah!” he sat guard.

  
  


As Adrian led Pandora outside, Mayes and Icarus scooted ahead down the hallway in the opposite direction, taking a random route through the underground tunnels. Pandora desperately reached out a hand, but the other two had already disappeared down a far hall.

“I realize tonight was a lot,” Adrian apologized.

She turned and gave a weak smile. “Yeah, just a little.”

“You were magnificent out there.”

“So were you. Very impressive.”

He chuckled. “I’d be happy to show you some of them, sometime.”

“Please,” she smiled back. “I’d really like that.”

“I don’t know, maybe I can come by Delphos. I’m pretty confident that’s something they’d let me do, so.”

“Surely, yeah, you’re a graduate.”

“Yeah, see some old friends, and perhaps… I don’t know, you… we can still… get that drink? If… if you’re not…?” Adrian cleared his throat, shifting his weight and fidgeting with his clothes. “We don’t have to talk about it now, I realize… we’ve just been through quite the ordeal…”

She put a finger on his lips. “I’d like that.”

Adrian flustered, going slightly red.

She smiled again, taking back the finger. “That would be nice.”

“It would be. Well, then, I should… Leave you to your friends, and perhaps the three of you should go… home. Um, tell your mentors what happened?”

“Yeah,” she realized, “I need to speak to him as soon as possible.”

He looked at her again. “It was an absolute pleasure to meet you, Pandora.”

“It was lovely to meet you too, Adrian.”

He took her hand, and kissed it. “I’ll see you at Delphos, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” she squeaked, blushing hard. “Yeah you will.”

He winked, and then turned to go the other way.

Pandora stood there for a minute, and then left, sending out a message to the others.  _ “Where are you?!” _

_ “Don’t know!” _ Icarus returned.

_ “Why did you run away?!” _

  
  


Pandora eventually found the two of them waiting outside, having collected their bet money along the way and guiding Pandora to do the same. There were still floods of people leaving into the streets, and a large number of people still milling around on the green outside. The market was still open, as were the bars. It felt like stepping out of a different world, the strange experience they just had inside seemingly untouched by the streets of Erran.

Icarus beamed at Pandora, leaning in. “Hi.”

“Don’t embarrass her,” Mayes chided.

Icarus leaned back.

Erran stretched out before them, the dim lanterns and braziers above doorways lighting their way. They made their way back towards Delphos Training Academy.

  
  



	7. Blade in the Bark, Episode Seven

The three of them returned to the Academy. It was late, the streets dark and quiet as they approached the familiar stone walls. A few of the dormitory rooms had light on, but most were dark. It was nearly midnight when something caught their eye.

On the roof, they saw the silhouette of something moving.

“Anyone else see that?” Icarus whispered.

“Yes,” the other two overlapped.

It looked quadrupedal at first, but then humanoid and crouched. It stood up and ran at a crouch across the rooftops, disappearing out of sight around the side of one of the walls on the top.

The three of them walked along the outside of the building, trying to look for it. As they moved around, Icarus caught a glimpse of it where it passed a brazier light on an adjacent building, a shadow going down and hopping from the roof of the Academy onto one of the different buildings before taking off at speed across the rooftops and away from the school.

“That way,” Icarus pointed. “Did you see it?”

“Now that you pointed it out, yes,” Pandora worried.

“Should we keep going?” Mayes wondered.

“I mean, that’s not comfortable, is it?” Icarus frowned.

“Not really.”

But it was moving too fast to follow, much faster than they would expect a person to be able to run when crouched down.

“What do we do?” Pandora asked.

Icarus sighed. “I don’t feel like we can follow it on the ground, but if we get up to the roofs, I think it will be long gone, you know?”

“Yeah. It’s weird, though.”

Mayes frowned. “I guess, just…”

“Keep it in mind?” Icarus finished.

“Keep an eye out, keep it in mind.”

“Maybe tell…”

“Some of the teachers,” Mayes agreed. “I mean, we’re going to go see Sebaste tomorrow anyway.”

“True. Yeah, I’m shattered,” Icarus chuckled. “We might end up chasing it, and end up fighting two more chimeras.”

“No, I’m not fighting anything,” Pandora agreed.

“No, no no no no. So let’s just… Head in, I guess, but keep an eye out for that in the future, just in case.”

They headed up the steps and into the front doors. The three of them split off in the courtyard and headed off to their dorm rooms.

“Goodnight, guys,” Pandora smiled.

“Goodnight,” Icarus replied.

Mayes gave a little salute.

They returned to their rooms, climbing into their beds absolutely exhausted from the night's events, and sleep found them very fast.

  
  


They slept soundly, while Pandora dreamed. She dreamt of her mother, reaching out to her from inside a dark cloud of smoke. She held out her hand, smiling as Pandora took it. She closed her fingers around Pandora’s hand and pulled her close to her chest. She pressed her lips to her temple, and began to sing a lullaby Pandora barely remembered from somewhere in the fringes of her mind. When she awoke in the morning, she could still hear the tune in her head, as if it was floating around the room, all about her. She took a few minutes that morning to look at pictures of her family.

They all awoke at their usual times, Icarus treating himself to a bit of a lie in and rising at 6:00 rather than 5:00, all feeling much better. He got up, stretched, and went for his morning jog around the streets near the Academy. He took a look at the roofs, but he didn’t see any signs of anything. Outside of the Academy, there was a broken terracotta tile that had slid off the roof, but apart from that, there was nothing.

He went to the bathhouse and changed, and later in the morning, the three of them converged in the courtyard. There were a few other students around, milling about and heading to classes, but the field was mostly empty.

Icarus jogged up to the others with soaking hair, tying on his belt. “Hey!”

“Morning, Icarus,” Mayes grinned.

“Morning!”

“Everyone sleep okay?” Pandora checked.

“Yeah,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah,” Icarus followed, “Really good.”

“Ready for our big day?” Pandora asked.

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “Everyone still up for it?”

“Oh yeah,” Icarus replied.

“Awesome.”

“This is gonna be great, we’ve got this.”

“Yeah, obviously.”

“Gotta start paying off those debts anyway,” Pandora worried.

“Yeah….” Icarus grimaced.

“Oh, buddy,” Mayes teased.

Icarus chuckled. “No, it was worth it, you know. It was worth it.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Alright, let’s go… see Sebaste? Or should we go tell people what happened? I feel like Lorakai should know about last night.”

“Sure,” Mayes shrugged.

“Just real quick,” Pandora agreed.

“We’ll just pop in,” Icarus assured her.

“I know Alexander’s got classes this morning, so I’ll try and catch him before.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Pandora and Icarus went off, but Mayes figured that if the others were passing on the information, Citra would hear eventually.

Lorakai and Alexander were both shocked, though glad their students were alive. They were both very impressed, although slightly concerned that they would so quickly jump into the situation to put themselves in danger. Lorakai gave his student a big hug.

The pair went on to explain what they had learned from Helena. Both of their mentors assured them they could put off their contracts if they needed to, but both students felt ready to go.

They were sent off to Sebaste’s office, and knocking on the door, he welcomed them in again. He was sitting at his desk with a pot of tea in front of him, offering them a pour which they all accepted. “So you’re ready for your contract?”

“Yes,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah, definitely,” Icarus smiled.

“Fantastic, fantastic,” Sebaste approved. “I suppose I should tell you a little more about it then, this morning. Okay, let’s just go over what you know… people have been disappearing up the coastline, further north. It’s from a small town called Ithia. A sum of 260 gold is offered to your group for finding the cause of this and stopping it, with bonus sums for each missing person brought back alive. That will be discussed with the contract maker when you arrive. The money will be split between the three of you- you understand that? To pay off your debts?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Ithia is a small coastal town, um, it is about 60 miles north of here, but on the coastline. Your contract is a human man, his name is Andreas Manallis, and he works at Villa Mykons. It’s a farm up on the hills, I believe. You’ll be able to find him there, and he can tell you everything that you need to know to get started. As for travel, that is up to you three. We can provide methods of faster travel, if you wish, we can provide you with horses, we can provide you with a cart if you wish for it, and camping equipment… But, accommodation, once you reach Ithia, is at your own discretion on your budget. And, you will be responsible for any damages to the equipment that you borrow, beyond wear and tear related to the contract.”

“Sure,” Icarus agreed. “I think just horses and camping equipment would be good, right?”

“Yeah, that’d be good,” Pandora agreed.

“Be nice to rough it for a little while,” Mayes agreed.

“Keep things cheap.”

“Exactly,” Icarus chuckled.

“Good, good,” Sebaste nodded. “In which case, gather everything that you need, and set off as soon as you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” Pandora replied. “Um, just before we go, Master Auron, um, there was something I think we should probably tell someone about? Something we saw last night on the roof?”

She explained what they saw, and Sebaste’s face looked quite nervous and concerned before he quickly tried to mask it not to worry them, putting on a big smile and pouring more tea, pushing it towards them.

“Yeah, when I was on my run this morning,” Icarus recalled, “There was a tile that had come down from the roof around the right hand side of the building?”

“Thank you very much for letting us know,” Sebaste replied. “We will be sure to look into that. Shouldn’t have anyone on the roofs, whether it’s students playing pranks, or…”

“Yeah, I don’t want to get anyone into trouble,” Pandora backtracked, “But if it is a student, it’s probably not safe up there. And if it's something more sinister, I feel like someone should know about it.”

“Put it out of your minds. We’ll deal with it.”

“Thank you.”

Icarus nodded. “We should probably head down to the…”

“The stables.”

“Get a horse.”

“Let’s get going,” Mayes agreed.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

“Enjoy yourselves,” Sebaste called as they left. “And… behave!”

“See you later, Sebaste,” Mayes grinned.

The door swung closed.

  
  


Delphos Academy had access to a stable within Erran, though it wasn’t within the Academy itself, and further towards the gate of the city. They gathered their belongings and took a permission slip to meet a nice half orc lady named Thekla at the door, who invited them in and took their slip. “Yeah, you can take whatever horse suits you.”

“Thank you,” Icarus smiled, turning to the others. “What kind of horse do you guys like?”

“...They’re horses,” Mayes shrugged.

Icarus gave them a scandalized look. “No!”

“Okay?”

“They’re not just horses. You’ve got, like, working horses, fast horses, cart horses…”

“Fast horse,” Mayes shrugged.

“Okay, come on!”

“Okay…”

They took a look through the stables as Thekla guided them around, pointing out the faster ones, the slower but easier to control ones, a few tall black and white ones, some stouter and slightly more muscular, some chubbier short white ponies, and a couple of shire horses with big fluffy feet. All of them were incredibly well kept with their manes braided down the back of their necks.

She led them to a very tall 18 hand black and grey mottled stallion, a sleek and slender looking horse. Icarus took a moment to admire it as the woman informed them its name was Artax.

Mayes chose a slightly shorter and rounder mare, chestnut brown with a white stripe down the nose. Her name was Winx. They gave her a pat on the neck, and Winx seemed very affectionate, craning her neck around to nuzzle them with her head.

Pandora had only ridden a few times, but she didn’t want to slow the others down. “Maybe a faster one, but with a nice temperament? Maybe?”

“If you want to ride with me, you can,” Icarus offered.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind having my own horse.”

“Hm…” the woman considered. “Give me a minute…” she went up and down the rows of horses until she came to one with black and white spots, tall and slender and speedy, slowly chomping away at its nose bag. She told them its name was Whirlwind. “He’s a very big boy, but he’s very nice. He’s not that fast, so he won’t buck you off, but kind of sensitive to the heels, so don’t dig them in too tight.”

Pandora gave the horse a pet.

“Anything else you need for them?”

“Yeah, if we could just grab some bags of food to take with us?” Icarus asked. “Because we’re gonna be gone for maybe a few days.”

The woman brought out some saddlebags and equipment and feed, and the group set about packing in their camping supplies. There were grecian stripes and colors down the reins, with the name of the stables engraved into the leather of the saddles. Thekla fitted on saddles, and made sure they all understood how to take them on and off themselves. It went over Pandora’s head a bit, but Icarus was taking it all in.

She informed them they had the horses for four days, and they should try to get word to her if they would need them for longer.

“Sure, no worries,” Icarus smiled. “We can definitely do that. Thank you.”

“Thank you so much,” Pandora agreed.

“No problem,” she smiled. “Good luck!”

“Thanks,” Icarus nodded.

“See you later,” Mayes followed.

Off they went. They climbed up onto their horses, and despite being a bit wobbly, Pandora was able to swing up onto it fine. The horse had a nice temperament, taking to her very quickly. “Whirlwind, you’re very cute,” she smiled.

The three of them went plodding out of the city, horses hooves clopping against the flagstones at their feet, back out through the giant double gates. Instead of going right towards the farms where the hill giant was, they took the long road down the bridge over the canal, and off north up the coastline.

“Has anyone been north before?” Icarus asked. There were a few small towns dotted along the coast, but there wasn’t much else until one had travelled way north of the Shaiste.

“I had a class up here one time,” Pandora replied, “But not to the village we’re going to.”

“Mayes?” Icarus prompted.

“Erran is the furthest north I’ve ever been,” they replied.

“Fair. I live for this weather. It’s exciting, right?”

“Yeah, it’s different.”

“Bit of an adventure,” Pandora smiled.

“Exactly,” Icarus grinned.

“It’s nice to get out,” Mayes continued, “Properly.”

“Yeah, right? We can get to know each other properly.”

“Yeah, have some actual conversations that don’t get interrupted by chimeras and whatnot.”

“Don’t say it.”

“Well I mean, not many people can say they’ve had a conversation interrupted by a chimera,” Pandora reasoned.

“That’s true,” Mayes considered.

“Let alone two chimeras.”

“That’s true,” Icarus agreed. “It’s weird, like… I’ve known you guys for what, three days now? And I feel like I’ve known you a lifetime.”

“Guess we just kinda… got bound together like that,” Mayes replied.

“Like really quick,” Pandora agreed.

“Some may say by fate,” Mayes teased.

Icarus laughed. “Nice, though.”

“What I said the other day still stands though,” Pandora added. “I know that we bonded really quickly and everything but I still feel like I don’t really know you guys that well?”

“Yeah, I agree.”

“Like,  _ the deep stuff _ ,” she chuckled as the others laughed.

“Well what do you want to know, Pandora?” Mayes offered.

“I don’t know, like.. Well, I know where you both… Do I really know that? I don’t really know where you both grew up. You’re from Vishima, but like, what was it like when you were a kid there? And Icarus, did you always live in Erran?”

“Since I was about nine,” he replied.

“Do you know where it was before that you lived?”

“Not really. Don’t really have that much of a memory, of a place.”

“Was it close by, or…?”

“No, no no.”

“Far away from here?”

“It was on the other side of Caldera.”

“Oh, wow!”

“And you just kind of found yourself in Erran?” Mayes asked.

“Um, I was on a boat,” Icarus explained. “It came this way. And then there was a shipwreck.”

“Oh, shoot.”

“You were in a shipwreck?” Pandora gasped.

“Uh, yeah,” Icarus chuckled.

“Wow.”

“Yeah. But, it’s fine, Kord saved me.”

“Like, for real?”

“That’s what the priests told me at the temple.”

“So what, when you were nine years old? You were in a shipwreck?”

“Mhm.”

“Wow.”

“That’s impressive that you made it out,” Mayes thought.

“Yeah.”

“Being able to breathe underwater helped,” Icarus grinned.

Mayes nodded. “True.”

“So what, did you just swim to the shore?” Pandora guessed.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Icarus replied. “Huge storm. Took down the ship, and everyone on it. I ended up... washing up in Erran,” he chuckled.

“Were there not other triton on the ship?”

“No.”

“You were the only one?”

“Yeah.”

Pandora shook her head. “I’m sorry, this is like a lot of questions…”

“It’s okay! It’s okay, don’t worry. But yeah, that’s how I got my scar, on my back.”

“You have a scar on your back?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled.

Pandora craned her neck to look, but it was covered.

“Is it a big one?” Mayes asked.

“It’s pretty big,” Icarus shrugged. “It’s from like, here to here,” he drew a line from one shoulder to the opposite hip.

Mayes gave an approving nod. “Cool.”

“Well, I mean, it looks cool.”

“Yeah, that’s my point. It’s not cool that you were like… mutilated… but…”

“Mutilated!” Icarus burst out in laughter. “Hadn’t thought of it like that, but sure!”

“A cool scar for a cool guy,” Pandora concluded.

“Yeah, I should be able to pretend it’s from something cooler though, right?”

“I’d say a shipwreck is pretty cool.”

“A shipwreck is pretty cool,” Mayes agreed.

“Like, not many people can say that they’ve been in a shipwreck. Especially survived one.”

“That’s true,” Icarus considered. “Anyway, you? Pandora?”

“Yeah, just always lived here. Lucky enough to have Delphos pretty much on the doorstep.”

“That is lucky. It is a beautiful place.”

“It is.”

“If not way too hot.”

“I like it!”

“It’s a nice kind of temperature,” Mayes shrugged as Icarus groaned.

“Not your thing?” Pandora guessed.

He sighed. “Yeah, no, I’m getting used to it now after… What… Eleven? No, longer… How old am I?” he chuckled.

“Fifteen years, if you’re twenty-four,” Pandora smiled.

“Fifteen years, yeah,” he chuckled.

“I’m sad it doesn’t really snow here,” Mayes reflected.

“I’ve never seen snow,” Pandora replied.

“It used to snow at home.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, but… It was always like,  _ oh, don’t go out in the snow... _ ”

Icarus raised a brow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, we’ve got a lot of stories back home about how you’re not really supposed to go out of the cities very much. I think I kind of said as much before, and especially when it snows it’s like,  _ oh, there’s spirits that will get you if you go out in the snow alone _ .”

“Is that a proven thing?” Pandora asked, “Or is that just to like, keep people inside, and… I don’t want to say  _ control _ people, but…”

Mayes laughed. “No no, we actually have some local legends and stuff. I used to go to, um… There was this haunted house, when I was a kid, it’s probably still there, but uh… They say that one of those spirits, they’re called yuki-onna, like snow women. Um, that if you go there, it’s always cold. And maybe sometimes it snows indoors, because she still haunts the place. But, I mean I can’t say I’ve ever been in that house and it’s snowed out of nowhere, so, I don’t know if there’s much truth to it, but it was fun to explore when we were kids.”

“So you broke the rules when you were kids,” Pandora smiled. “Like a bit of a rebel.”

“Well, the house is still in the city,” Mayes reasoned. “It’s just abandoned, and no one goes there.”

“Oh okay, so you weren’t allowed to leave the city, that’s what it was.”

Mayes sighed. “Strongly advised to not leave the city, is what I would say. Like obviously, people had to go to different parts of the island for trade, and sometimes people had to sail over to Kishima, which is our sister island, but… It was just… just a lot of folklore and superstition over there.”

“When did you come to Delphos?” Icarus asked. “Anyone else from your island come here?”

“Oh no, not really. My parents sent me to Erran to study, when I was fifteen. And I was part of a different school, and then I heard about Delphos, and I thought that I could do better.”

“And here we are.”

“And here we are. Doing better.”

They travelled along the wide dirt paths up the northern coastline, rolling through hills and irrigated farmland, and out into the wilderness. All around them were dusty rocks, overgrowth, wild trees, and wilderness stretching out around them for miles and miles. They left in the early morning around 10:00am, and after midday, the wind started to pick up quite a bit. It was nice and cool, and considering the heat of the day here even in wintertime, the wind was nice and cool even though it did blow their hair about wildly. It became a bit more difficult to talk to one another travelling along by horse, but they continued up until they could see the bays stretching out ahead of them, with several small towns dotted up the coastline, some close and some specks of color in the distance, the bright blue waters crashing against the shores at the bottom of the cliffs, and huge waves breaking white in the wind. It was beautiful scenery, but they could feel the weather was starting to turn slightly. They headed on until early evening, and realized they weren’t near a town yet, so they were going to have to make camp soon.

“We should probably try and find somewhere to stay,” Icarus decided.

“Good idea,” Pandora agreed.

“I’ll have a look around for a good spot,” Mayes volunteered. They did, but they were not at all used to the terrain, and it all seemed to be open land. Considering they could see some dark clouds over the horizon of the sea, it didn’t seem anywhere was safe to make camp.

“We can keep going a bit longer,” Icarus offered.

“Yeah, perhaps.”

They moved further, and after travelling for almost another hour, the western horizon directly to their left, they could see the most incredible colors of the sunset. The sun was lowering down in the sky, casting a mind blowing orange light over the entire ocean. They could see the light shapes of the marshes in the distance, the next bit of land before hitting the open ocean. Just as the sun came down, just touching the crest of the sea, Pandora spotted a rocky outcrop a quarter mile off. Jutting out of one of the hills, some craggy rock hanging over, it did look like it would keep them dry.

“Over there,” she pointed. “You see the outcrop?”

“Oh, perfect,” Icarus nodded. “Good spot.”

“Sweet,” Mayes agreed.

“That’ll do,” Pandora decided.

“We should go set up there.”

“Yeah, before it gets any darker.”

“Come on baby,” Icarus tapped his horse, “Let’s go.”

The horses were getting quite tired after a full day of riding, and were very grateful when they climbed down and unpacked their supplies on the cliff. There was enough space for them to tether the horses inside, sheltering them from the rain as well. It seemed to have been used as a camp before, with the slight remnants of a campfire under the rock, but long gone out with bits blown all over the place.

They settled in, and Icarus set up the horses with the nose bags. Their coats were dusty, but they were grateful for the food. They set up a fire, and Pandora walked around the campsite sprinkling powder on the ground and uttering incantations as she went. The alarm silently appeared for a moment as she finished before disappearing back into invisibility.

They were considerably high up, and about 500 feet from the water. They settled in and had some of the rations they had packed, making a meger dinner of bread and dried meats. The horses were eating better than they were, but it was fine enough, and they had a cozy campfire flickering an orange light backwards onto the cliff face behind them.

The first rumble of thunder sounded off in the distance, the storm clouds gathering over the sea. Following the thunder, though the storm was still a few miles off, they saw a flash of lightning through the cloud, with the smell of a thunderstorm in the air.

“I’m glad we’re sheltered,” Pandora remarked, “But it’s nice to be able to watch it from here.”

Icarus smiled. “It’s gonna be a good one.”

“This is like, your natural habitat,” Mayes teased.

“Yeah, basically. I cannot wait.”

“Say thanks to Kord for the nice weather.”

“I will.”

Icarus scooted closer to the edge, watching and waiting. It took another half hour for it to arrive, and he watched the sheets of rain hit the sea below as it creeped closer, blurring their vision into grey mistyness. They could see out on the water a few Errani ships folding their sails and battering down the hatches for the storm, the waves started to rock and the sea getting darker where it was normally a bright blue.

The storm hit, at first with a drizzle of rain and then a downpour, crackling with a rich meditteranian heat even in the water. Icarus sat out in it, letting the rain wash over him, his fins vibrating happily. Mayes and Pandora sat back against the wall under the overhang, watching Icarus get doused and soaked in the rain.

“Well I’m glad he’s having a good time,” Mayes chuckled.

“It’s beautiful though,” Pandora smiled. “Isn’t it?”

“Oh, it is, yeah. Just… happy to be in here, and not in it.”

“Yeah, I’d rather stay dry.”

“At least it's still warm, though.”

“Yeah.”

As it travelled over them, there was a flash or two of lightning that came very close. Icarus felt the static in the air around them as they hit the ground, and then a nearby tree with the burning wood smoke smell of the scorched tree following, though it never struck too close to where they sat. Icarus held his holy symbol, offering thanks to Kord as he sat there to pray.

One bolt of lightning struck the ground about twenty feet in front of him, and then the storm passed over quickly, the last pitter patter of rain drying up as it passed further inland.

Icarus bowed his head, and then shook his hair. The water slid right off, and it sprung back into life.

Mayes shook their head. “How does he do that…”

Icarus turned around and headed in, feeling refreshed.

“Feel good?” Pandora checked.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Yeah, really good.”

“How long do you normally have to wait around for one of those to come and hit you?” Mayes teased.

“It’s been… Well, it’s winter, so they usually come around not so often. They don’t really hit Erran that often, so.”

“No, I can’t say that I’ve seen that many while I’ve been here”

“Would you say that’s a good omen then?” Pandora asked.

Icarus smiled. “Oh yeah, definitely. That’s Lady Kord giving us her blessing.”

The blackened tree was smoking slightly into the air, with a massive fissure down the side of it. Pandora headed on out to observe as the others followed. It seemed like a large citrus tree, thoroughly struck, bark blackened with a slight hole in the trunk. The tree was almost hollowed out. It was somewhat hot to put her hands near, but the hole went completely through it.

She examined it excitedly. “So powerful, to do something like that. So cool.”

“Yeah, she is, isn’t she,” Icarus smiled.

Pandora noticed something shiny inside. Taking a closer look, she peeked her eye up to it and found the source of the glimmer. She put her hand in, but even with her natural resistances, it was still too hot to get in there.

She took out her hand, shaking it. “It’s hot.”

“You good?” Mayes asked.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” She tried again. It burned her hand quite badly, leaving a slight blister on the back of her hand. “Ugh!”

“You good?” Mayes repeated.

“Yes…”

“Do you want me to have a go?” Icarus offered.

“It’s really hot,” she warned.

“I’ll give it a go though. Might as well.”

“Be careful.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Absolutely determined, Icarus slid in his hand. Almost instantly, he caught the side of his skin on the burning hot wood. With his own natural weaknesses, he found himself hurting even worse as he yanked back the hand.

Mayes gave him a look before sliding in a hand with expert precision, pulling the thing out easily. The object was completely blackened, as if it had been on fire, but it appeared to be a dagger. “Oh. That’s... that’s really cool.”

“That’s so cool,” Pandora overlapped. “That was just in the tree? Or…?”

Icarus looked up to the sky, and then Mayes.

Pandora followed. “No…”

“Maybe it was a gift,” Icarus smiled.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Mayes studied it. “I guess we should see if we can figure it out.”

Icarus looked over, noticing the shimmer of magic, though it was too blackened to see any markings. “Oh, there’s something on there,” he grinned.

“Have you got the whetstone still?” Pandora asked.

“Yeah, I’ve got three of them,” Mayes replied.

“Maybe like, something to polish them?”

“Just kind of polish it off and vibe with it? Yeah, I’m happy to do that.”

They returned to the camp, and Mayes spent some time cleaning and restoring the blade. There was a beautiful, though slightly rusty, silver dagger underneath. They would have to spend a bit more time working on it, but it would still work as a weapon for now.

Icarus sat by their camp, looking out at the now completely dead tree.

“It’s kind of beautiful,” Pandora observed.

“It really is.”

Pandora sheepishly slid up to him as Mayes was off cleaning the blade.

“So, I don’t want to like… Upset you, or embarrass you, or anything, but… Just to sort of get a handle with it if we’re going to be working together…”

“Yeah?”

“When we were in the labyrinth,” she began, “I couldn’t help but notice that you were a little shaken up at one point. Like, after we got separated, and then we found you again. I don’t wanna like, embarrass you. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to...”

Icarus grinned and shook his head. “You’re right, you’re right, you’re right…”

“I figured that, if there’s something we should know about, that maybe we can help you avoid, if we’re taking tasks in the future…”

“Uh, small spaces.”

“Small spaces?”

“I… don’t like being stuck in small spaces.”

“That’s why you didn’t want to come through the tunnels, either,” Mayes interjected from the other side of the cave.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Pandora nodded.

Icarus shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Oh, I’m sorry for saying to come through those.”

“Oh, no no no, it’s fine, it’s fine. I should be… I should be able to handle it, so.”

“You don’t have to handle it.”

“Exactly,” Mayes agreed, “This is the kind of thing that we need to know about each other.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I know, like…” Icarus shrugged again, and chuckled. “It’s… yeah. It’s not the one, you know.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s okay,” Mayes agreed. “It’s just good to know.”

“And it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Pandora agreed. “Like, everyone has stuff like that, to get them all sort of wound up, you know?”

Icarus looked away for a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, when I got teleported, I appeared in a… small… cell. So, it was not great.”

“That must have been really hard for you. Good on you for getting through it by yourself.”

“Thanks.”

“I think that’s really strong of you.”

Icarus was quiet for a beat, and then leaned over to bump her shoulder. “Thanks,” he chuckled again. “Well, still. We did it, we did our first exam, regardless.”

“We did. Stuff like that is good to know about, for the future.”

“Like you said, we should know each other’s fears and stuff.”

“If other people are comfortable with sharing?” Mayes prompted.

“Sure,” Pandora agreed, thinking for a bit. “Like, this is probably really strange, because it’s never happened to me, but it’s just the concept of it makes me like… Ugh, go all… it makes me feel funny inside, I really don’t like it. The notion of being sucked down into the ground? Like, that really makes me feel uncomfortable. It makes me feel sick inside.”

“Huh,” Icarus considered.

“I have a dream now and then where I’m like, buried alive, and I… ugh, yeah, It’s never happened to me personally, but it messes me up, and I can’t…”

Icarus was grimacing. “Yeah, just the thought of it…”

“It’s just one of those kinds of fears?” Mayes asked.

“Mhm,” Pandora nodded.

“Huh. Spooky.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, that would be horrible, right?” Icarus frowned.

“Yeah, like, you’re in a small space anyway, but like… like you’re… like six feet underground, or deeper underground…”

Icarus shook his head, and then shook out his whole body. “Ugh… no, no no...”

Mayes pat him on the back. “You’re giving him more nightmares,” Mayes teased.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Pandora stopped.

“It’s okay,” Icarus laughed. “We can bond over it.”

“Yeah.”

Icarus shook his head again. “No, fuck that.”

“But like, small spaces isn’t a problem for you,” Mayes clarified, looking to Pandora. “It’s more of being under something.”

“Yeah, being underground and not being able to get out,” she explained. “Clawing your way out, and earth choking you.”

“Okay…”

“Like I said, it’s never happened to me before personally, but it’s…”

“Yeah, fair. It’s not a nice thought.”

“No.”

Icarus sighed and grinned. “Now that you’re talking about it, my head is just like spinning. I don’t like that.”

Mayes chuckled. “If you look scared in the morning, we’ll know what you’ve dreamt about.”

Icarus gagged again, and then shook it off.

“Anything for you Mayes?” Pandora asked. “That we should know about?”

“Um… I don’t really know how to describe it,” they thought. “Like… Okay, if I had stepped on one of those squares that teleported you, that would have been a problem.”

“Oh really?”

“I don’t… I don’t have a problem with being on my own, but if I’m with people somewhere and I get lost, that really freaks me out. Like, being separated from a group that I’m supposed to be with.”

“That makes sense,” Icarus considered.

“Without understanding why, you mean?” Pandora asked. “Like if we all were going somewhere, but then we split up to get more coverage of the ground we’re in, is that okay for you?”

“Yeah, if we pre-agreed that we were gonna split up, that's fine. But if I was walking with you guys and I turned around, and you just weren't there, that’d…”

“Freak you out?” Icarus nodded.

“That’s it. That’s it for me.”

“Okay…”

“Okay,” Pandora repeated. “That’s good to know.”

“And,” Mayes continued, “Like, I kind of got over it because, you know, the line of work we’re in… But sometimes the smell of blood just kind of gets me a bit. Just a little bit, but it's something that I can deal with fine.”

“I mean, the number of things that we killed in the labyrinth, you seemed pretty okay with that.”

“Exactly, yeah. It’s just a little bit of a… yeah.”

“Yeah, smells are weird, huh,” Icarus grinned.

“And temperature,” Pandora added.

Mayes raised a brow. “Temperature?”

“I really don’t like being cold.”

“Fair.”

“Maybe that’s just me being a princess about it…”

Mayes laughed.

“I just think you’re a lizard,” Icarus teased. “Honestly.”

“Yeah,” Pandora admitted, “I think I just like the sun.”

“You’re secret lizardfolk,” Mayes joked.

“Explains the horns,” Icarus smiled. “Maybe you’re just part lizard.”

“That must be it,” Pandora rolled her eyes. “Maybe my dad had a lizardfolk ancestor, years and years ago.”

“It’s a recessive gene,” Icarus laughed. “That’s what I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, that’s how it works.”

“Who knows,” Icarus giggled. “They don’t teach us, like, genetics…”

“They don’t even teach us basic math!”

“Right!?”

“It’s like, I know how to read people’s weaknesses,” Mayes grinned, “But I don’t know how to do taxes.”

“I don’t know how to do taxes!” Pandora followed. “Like, I don’t know how to cook for myself!”

Icarus had been laughing, but he turned to look at Pandora at that. “Really?”

“Yeah! Like, I can do, like, toast.”

“Do you want me to teach you?”

“Please!”

“Yeah, we can help with that,” Mayes agreed.

“I feel like that side of me is severely lacking.”

“Okay, if we get ingredients while we’re camping, we can cook some stuff.”

“That’d be great.”

“We can get ingredients from the town when we get there,” Icarus offered.

“That’d be nice!”

Mayes gasped with realization. “I can make hotpot for you guys sometime.”

“Please!” Icarus smiled.

“Yeah, please!” Pandora followed. “So I will sit and watch, and take notes, and maybe get in the way trying to help I guess.”

“You wouldn’t get in the way. We’d be teaching you!”

“It’s like my dad always said, too many cooks.”

“Nah, I don’t think that’s true.”

“Three cooks is fine,” Mayes agreed.

Pandora made an unconvinced noise. “My dad never let us cook, because like, we would get home from school and he’d say  _ you have to do your homework, I will cook dinner _ . So he is a great cook, but I don’t think any of us can cook anything.”

“Well, I think that’s a waste,” Icarus smiled. “He should have passed it on…”

“He’s robbing you of a life skill,” Mayes laughed.

“He was trying to get us to study!” Pandora defended.

“Well he did,” Icarus conceded. “But, don’t worry. We’ll teach you how to cook, okay? And then you can go home and surprise him, and be like,  _ no dad, you do your homework! _ ”

“That’d be nice,” Pandora laughed.

Icarus shrugged and grinned. “I don’t know how this parenting thing works.”

“Is that how Lorakai parents you?” Mayes laughed.

It wasn’t dissimilar. Icarus would often hear,  _ “Okay kid, you cook, you cook, I’m too busy.” _

Icarus chuckled. “Yeah.”

“I just grew up helping,” Mayes shrugged.

“Yeah, that’s basically how I learned. I was helping people out.”

“I’d like to learn,” Pandora smiled.

“Yeah, we can!”

“It’s fun,” Mayes followed.

“It is fun.”

“I’ve done lots of cooking stuff, so.”

“We can exchange recipes,” Icarus smiled.

“We can exchange recipes. You can show me your Erran recipes, and I can show you my Vishima recipes.”

“Sure! I got a few others, as well.”

“Okay, fair.”

They continued their conversations until they were lying down in their bedrolls, still chatting away until they were too tired to keep talking, rambling as they fell asleep.

At one point, Icarus’s eyes snapped open. “It was a young tree. That got hit by the lightning. It was a young one.”

“Shh,” Mayes chided.

“Okay…”

Eventually, they all drifted off to sleep, dreaming of nothing in particular. It was a calm sleep, with the sounds of the waves hitting the cliff, and a few birds in the air, the distant rumbles of the storm lulling them off. It was one of the best sleeps they had in awhile, despite the strange ground underneath.

  
  


They awoke with the morning, the cliff keeping them in shadow as the sun rose behind them. Icarus was used to waking quite early, and after jumping awake with a moment of confusion, he got his bearings. It had been a long time since any of them had slept out like this.

He decided to go for a quick run before waking the others to see if he could find anything to cook. There were a few groves of trees in the distance, but it seemed the only fruit tree around the entire area had been struck by lightning last night. There were various small creatures rushing about, but he wasn’t really in the mood to catch any lizards.

He walked back into the camp with nothing and glanced at his horse. The horse, he concluded, was being judgemental. “Don’t give me that look. You couldn’t do any better, you don’t have hands.”

He started a breakfast of rations, heating up some dried meats and toasting some bread. The others woke to the scent of the food.

“Morning,” Pandora yawned.

“Morning,” Icarus smiled.

“Ah, breakfast,” Mayes nodded. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, no worries, eat up.”

“Thank you,” Pandora smiled.

“Sorry it’s not fresh, I couldn’t find anything.”

“It’s okay. It’s about my level of cooking, so.”

“I think the young tree that got struck last night was the only fruit tree in the area.”

“Oh, what sort of fruit?”

“Uh, burnt.”

Pandora laughed. “Is it like, caramelized now?”

Icarus shook his head. “That’s not how that…”

“Gone,” Mayes grinned. “Kord took it. Next time we see a fruit tree, we can grab some on our way”

“Yeah, that’d be good.”

They packed their camp and saddled the horses again. Icarus helped Pandora put it on properly, teaching her the correct words for everything. The three of them climbed back on top and set off for the morning.

They didn’t find much, though they did see a distant grove of what was probably fruit trees way off their path. Pandora pointed them out to the others.

“Eh, we can probably get something from the village when we get there,” Icarus decided.

“Yeah, sure,” Mayes agreed.

“No point in going out of our way today.” They were about three hours off by now. Icarus pointed to a tree a hundred miles away. “Race you. First one there.”

“Okay,” the others agreed.

They lined their horses up, preparing to go. Pandora was a bit too quick off the mark, digging her heels into the side of the horse so eagerly and exactly against what the woman at the stables had warned her, and it took off at full speed. She was able to cling onto the horse's neck, while Icarus responded quickly to pursue.

Though Mayes hadn’t said anything, exuding confidence about it, this was their first time riding. Their horse spooked instantly at the sight of Pandora’s horse bolting off, and the horse bucked them off immediately. The front legs came up as they went flying off the back of the horse and into the dirt. “Ow, shit!”

Pandora was ahead, but she was losing control of the horse, pulling too hard on the reins and unsure of what to hold onto as she accidentally slowed it down. Just in the last ten feet, Icarus took her and passed the tree. As they both slowed down past the mark, they turned their horses to see Mayes on the floor where they had left them, in the process of getting back up.

“Oh!” Icarus blinked.

“Are you okay?” Pandora called.

“Yeah,” Mayes called back.

“Do you need a hand?” Icarus offered.

“No, the horse just got scared.”

“Oh, sorry!” Pandora apologized.

Their horse was walking around in circles, and came up to butt its head against Mayes again. They gave it a pat, whispering “ _ I’m sorry _ .”

They hopped up and rode it slowly over.

“That was an experience,” Icarus chuckled.

“Yeah,” Pandora sighed, still shaken. “That was good.”

“You took off like a shot!”

“Yeah, I need to rein it in a bit, I think.”

“Yeah, when you were pulling back on the reins, you were slowing it down.”

“I was slowing it down, yeah.”

“Just practice,” Mayes advised, trying to look knowledgeable.

“But like a true Virtus,” Pandora teased, “Mister Icarus Pelayo wins again.”

Icarus examined Mayes. He was starting to get the inkling that Mayes wasn’t that experienced with horses, but he wasn’t sure if he should bring it up. “You need to grip with your knees more,” he settled on.

“...Sure,” they replied.

Icarus smiled at them, and then squinted a bit suspiciously at the back of their head when they turned away.

They rode on. It was a few more hours up the coast, and Mayes developed a bit of a bruise on their butt from riding, but said nothing. Eventually, they saw a wooden road marker pointing out Ithia with an arrow, telling them it was four miles ahead. Riding further, from a distance, they could see down a dip into the bay, where the crystal blue water hit the shore, some stretches of sand, and a littering of terracotta roofs and short buildings made from the same traditional sandy stones of Erran, but with other buildings painted pastel colors or brilliant white, all arranged in a half moon bay at the bottom.

As they approached at the top of the hill, they could see stretches of farmland into the distance to the east, and a few large villas. In the center of town at the bottom they could see the pointed roof of a temple in a sunny square facing the water.

“This place is beautiful,” Icarus observed.

“It really is,” Pandora agreed.

“We should come back here when we’ve finished, and just spend a day here.”

“Vacation day,” Mayes joked.

“Yeah, why not?”

“Be nice to take a dip in the water,” Pandora considered.

“Wouldn’t it?”

“Look how inviting it looks.”

“Oh, I wanna go in it so bad,” Icarus sighed. “We should do that. Beach day.”

“Beach day,” Pandora agreed.

“It’d be cute,” Mayes considered.

They continued around the side of the cliff, passing a few largish private villas until they came onto one that was obviously a farm. It said Village Mykons at the front, and they saw a single story stretch of white painted building with terracotta roof over the top, with a few smaller buildings dotted around, and behind it acres and acres of olive groves and gardens.

They approached the front on their horses, and saw a quite tall human man with greying short dark hair and dark eyes sitting down outside with a sunhat on, his suntanned skin slightly wrinkled from many hours working outside. He was just jotting things onto a parchment, and looked up to wave as they approached.

“Mister Manallis?” Icarus guessed.

“Yeah, that’s me?”

“Hi, um, I’m Icarus, from Delphos? We’re here about the missing people?”

“Contract,” Mayes nodded.

He looked relieved. “Oh, um, get down from your horses. Let us tie those up for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Thank you,” Pandora followed.

He helped them down and whistled for a farmhand who came to take the horses, leading them away into a shady spot. “Please, come in, welcome to Villa Mykonos.”

“Thanks,” Icarus smiled.

“Thank you,” Pandora nodded.

He led them in through a rounded wooden door, with terracotta tiles on the inside. It was a simple looking building, with a table and kitchenette to one end, and a few doors beyond that. “Please take a seat. Can I get you anything?”

“Uh, just a drink would do,” Icarus answered.

“Drink,” he nodded, looking to the others.

“Yeah, just some water,” Mayes agreed.

“Dusty ride,” Pandora smiled.

“I’m sure, I’m sure,” the man smiled back. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

“Thanks,” Icarus nodded.

He sat them at the small wooden table and came back out with a platter of ice water. He put in on the table and sighed. “I’m so relieved that you’ve come. Yes, I’m, I’m… you can call me Andreas.”

“Nice to meet you,” Pandora replied.

“I’m Icarus Pelayo,” Icarus offered.

“Mayes,” Mayes gave a wave.

“I’m Pandora,” the tiefling followed.

“A pleasure to meet all three of you.”

“So what can we do to help?” Icarus asked. “Do you have any information about these people?”

“Quite a bit, quite a bit. Well…” he pulled up a chair to sit down with them. “There are two workers missing here, from my wife and I’s farm. Um, disappearances… their disappearances in the last two weeks, that’s when we took out the contract. But the disappearances around town started, I think, five weeks ago? Three people going missing in the course of about nine days, particularly stormy week. A lot of them are fishermen, so when there’s a storm and people go missing, others go out to look, but it’s often expected that the fishing boat might have been wrecked, or…”

“Easy assumption,” Mayes considered.

“Did you say usually when there’s a storm?” Icarus clarified.

“You get a lot of storms recently?” Pandora pressed.

“There have been a fair few,” the man considered, “But it's not only when there's a storm, it just happened that the first disappearances sort of fell in line with that. I think, hmm…” he counted on his fingers. “Maybe eleven people in total? Have gone missing?”

He leaned back, calling down the hall. “Honey, is it eleven?”

One of the doors opened, and a short stout and bigger built elven woman in her late fifties with long golden hair falling down to her shoulders in ringlet appeareds. She came out wearing an apron with bees embroidered at the front of it, that read “Mykon’s honey.”

The woman waddled out from the other room. She had darker skin, kind hazel eyes, and curly sun bleached hair, wearing a wide and endearing smile. “Oh, you must have come over from Delphos!”

“Nice to meet you,” Pandora smiled.

“Nice to meet you too, I’m Katina.”

“Nice to meet you Katina,” Icarus grinned. 

“Yes, eleven people have gone missing.”

“That’s a lot,” Pandora worried.

“It is a lot, it is. I think… five have been fishermen?”

“And the others?”

“A few merchants.”

“And then two from your farm, right?” Icarus confirmed.

“Two from our farm.”

Her husband popped in again. “Uh, one of the bartenders from the Taverna Aretousa, in the town.”

“Is there anything that these people have in common at all?” Pandora wondered.

“Only that they’re all men.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, it’s different races, some human, half elves, couple of half orcs, but… nothing in common there. Different jobs, different ages. Anywhere from early manhood to their sixties, but all of them men.”

“Aside from the people on the ships, is there anywhere in particular folks have gone missing from?” Mayes asked. “Or the last places they were seen?”

“You may have to ask around in town for more details,” the woman apologized. “It was only when our boys went missing that we thought we’d contact Delphos with a contract.”

“Sure. Where were your boys when they went missing?”

“Well, so, Aris and Yanni. Um, I’ll start by saying neither of them had any reason to up and leave, there’s lots of speculation around town that all of these are just random occurrences with different reasons to leave, but… Aris was gonna be promoted soon, he was gonna be in charge of the farmhands here…”

“And he knew that?” Pandora clarified.

“He did, he did, he just had another five weeks or so until we passed that on to him. Our lead farmhand was retiring. And Yanni loved his job here, he’s got a pregnant wife in town, he’s providing for her.”

“Is she still around?” Icarus pressed.

“She should still be around in town, yeah.”

“So we can go talk to her,” Mayes planned.

“Her name is Kariss.”

“When the first people went missing,” Pandora wondered, “Did anything sort of change in the area? Like, I don’t know, anyone new come to town, or did a shipment of something come in, or…?”

The woman thought. “The only thing that I can suggest that was new, and you’ll have to ask around in town for clearer details on this, but we had a really bad harvest this year. And I know that the temple brought in a new cleric or priestess or something to help, it's a temple to Pelor. And the harvest a few months ago was really bad. But i don’t know if those things are coincidental, or they fall together, or…”

“Was the new priest here before the bad harvest?”

“I couldn’t tell you, we spend most of our time up here.”

“Of course,” he nodded. “Well, thank you for all of your help, we’ll check this out.”

“We will, um, we don’t have a lot more resources, but if you can bring Aris or Yanni back alive, there will be an extra sum. Maybe an extra 50 gold each?”

“We’ll do what we can.”

“Would you recommend starting anywhere, or with anyone in particular?” Mayes asked.

Katina frowned. “I mean, you can ask around the other farm hands outside and see if they know anything about our boys, but other than that… the town square is the center of everything that goes on in Ithia, its where the shops are, the tavern, the temples down there…”

“I think that’s probably a good place to look first of all,” Pandora nodded.

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed.

“But please, you’ve had a long journey, please rest a moment,” Katina urged them. “Let us get you some lunch or something.”

“Oh, that’d be lovely,” Icarus accepted.

“That’s really nice of you,” Pandora agreed.

“Come on out, come on out,” she beckoned. “Come see.”

She led them back out and around the side of the building. There, they could see up close the acres of perfectly planted olive trees in lines, gardens with vegetable patches, and of course, bee boxes. They saw half a dozen bee boxes down the far end, and a dozen workers scattered through the trees picking olives and fruit, hosing the ground and digging up vegetables. One came out in a bee suit, attending to the boxes.

To the side of the villa there was a small terrace outside with a beautiful mosaic floor of reds and blues, and right in the middle, a mosaic bee. They could smell the cooking through a small hatch window into a kitchen beyond, the scent of grilled meats and fish seeping out into the air, and the sweet smell of honey everywhere.

There was another doorway, an open archway with a mosaic tile at the top that read “shop.” Outside, there were several wooden tables sitting on the terrace in the shade of the olive trees.

“Let me get you some lunch,” Katina smiled.

“Thank you so much,” Pandora repeated.

“Feel free to wander around, this’ll take awhile, but…”

“Thanks,” Icarus smiled.

“Thanks,” Mayes echoed as Katina headed back inside. “Maybe we should go talk to somebody out there. Farmhands?”

“Yeah,” Pandora agreed.

“This place is so cute,” Icarus beamed.

Mayes chuckled. “You having a good time, Icarus?”

“Yeah, it’s just really sweet!”

“It is really nice, isn’t it,” Pandora smiled.

“Yeah, Yeah, no, we should definitely go talk to people. This isn’t a holiday.”

“Not  _ yet _ .”

“Not yet.”

“It will be,” Mayes grinned.

“It  _ will _ be,” Icarus declared.

As they walked around, they noticed that the crops looked fairly poor. Where they were digging vegetable gardens, the harvest seemed smaller than what they’d normally expect. A few workers were throwing some crops away that hadn’t grown properly. It wasn’t entirely pitiful, not as if it had been a drought, but it certainly wasn’t bountiful. The bee boxes, however, were in great condition.

They wandered and came across a young human lad up on a ladder picking olives off the trees and throwing them down into a basket.

“Hello,” Icarus called.

The worker glanced down. “Hi.”

“Hi there, we’re from Delphos?” Pandora offered. “We’re here to sort of… see if we can find your missing farmhand boys?”

“Oh, great.”

“I was wondering if there's anything you can tell us… about…?”

“Sure, what do you want to know?” he climbed down and sat on one of the bottom rungs of the ladder.

“When’s the last time you saw them?” Mayes asked. “Or, anything you might know about how or why they went missing?”

“Okay…” he rubbed his chin. “Aris… Aris was working here late one evening, and he headed down… Said he was heading back down to the town at around… what was it, after the sun had gone down so I don't know, eight? Nine? He seemed himself, didn’t seem anything strange about him. And, he just headed off from work, left his stuff here like he always does…”

“Was he alone?” Pandora wondered. “Or did he go with anyone else?”

“Yeah, he was alone.”

“Did he say he was going  _ home _ home?” Icarus pressed, “Or did he say he was going  _ out _ , or…?”

“He didn’t specify, but he was… he was quite dedicated, and he usually went straight home, and came straight back in the morning. We’re working here from sunup until sundown, so.”

“Yeah,” Mayes nodded. “Long day.”

“Um, so that was about… I guess, twelve days ago, I think. He just didn’t come back again, and everyone was in shock, we thought he’d deserted us at first.”

“Has anyone checked his home?” Icarus asked.

“Uh, I know that Andreas and Katina have been down there, knocking for him, but no answer. He lived alone. Uh, Yanni… maybe only six days ago? Um, he went out to the town in the middle of the day, said he was going to go check on his wife. Um, and didn’t come back up. We… nobody questioned it for awhile.”

“Maybe his wife needed something,” Icarus nodded.

“Exactly, we just left him to it.”

“Again, he was on his own?” Pandora clarified. “No one went with him down into the town?”

“He grabbed a ride on a cart that was going down there from up here, it was taking some supplies down to the village.”

“Was it with people you knew?” Icarus pressed.

“Yeah, yeah, I mean, a couple of the merchants who head up and down from the markets and sell some of our stuff.”

“That’s good to know,” Pandora considered. “So like, maybe someone saw him before he disappeared.”

“Has anyone talked to the merchants that he got a ride with?” Icarus asked.

“I assume Andreas and Katina did,” the worker shrugged.

“We can double check.”

“We can check,” Pandora agreed.

“Maybe we can get Aris’s address as well, check it out ourselves.”

“His wife, as well.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Thank you for helping with this, though,” the worker offered.

“That’s okay,” Pandora replied.

“No problem,” Mayes followed.

“It’s okay,” Icarus assured them. “That’s what Delphos does.”

“I hope nothing’s happened to them,” the man worried.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, so do we,” Pandora agreed.

“No worries,” Icarus assured him. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” the man climbed back up and resumed picking olives. The olives were more of an arid crop, able to grow a bit better in rough conditions, and there were a fair few of them. The man glanced back and noticed Icarus staring hungrily at the trees. “Wanna try?”

“Yes! Sure!”

The man tossed one over, fresh off the tree. Icarus got the pit out and swallowed it down.

“Is it good?” Pandora smiled.

“Yeah, it's really good.”

They went around to talk to a couple of the others, but it seemed like nobody knew much more about where the missing men had been going or where they had last been seen.

They headed back to the terrace to wait for lunch. Katina, with oven gloves and an apron, came out with a platter of food to set it on the table.

“This looks delicious,” Mayes complimented.

“Looks so good,” Pandora agreed.

She smiled. “Thank you!”

“Thank you,” Mayes returned.

“Did you cook all this yourself?” Pandora asked.

“Oh yeah, yeah,” she nodded. “It’s not really a restaurant, but I guess when people stop in at the shop, or come by the farm, I like to make sure everyone is well fed.”

“That’s really nice of you,” Mayes replied.

“Really nice,” Pandora echoed. She noticed there was a little bowl of honey with a china spoon to pour on their meat. “Is that the honey you make here?”

“Yeah,” Katina beamed.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so excited to try it.”

“Please, indulge yourselves. Eat up.”

“Thank you!” Icarus grinned.

“If you need anything from us while you’re here, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Oh, we wanted to know Yanni and Aris’s addresses?”

“Oh sure, I’ll get them for you.”

The trio chorused their thanks once more, and stuffed their faces with freshly grilled meats smothered in honey and roasted vegetables, fish caught freshly from the bay this morning, and honey perfectly sweet and naturally made.

As they finished up after about half an hour, Katina came out again to pour out tea with more honey. She went into the little shop archway, and came back out with three small jars of honey, placing them on the table. “Please! Take one each.”

“Oh, thank you!” Pandora smiled.

“How much do we owe you?” Icarus asked.

“No no no no,” she waved him off. “Please, you’re doing so much for us by coming here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah!”

“This is so sweet of you,” Pandora replied. “And the honey is so delicious.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“Some of the best honey I’ve ever had.”

“Definitely,” Icarus agreed. “Just as sweet as you.”

Katina chuckled “It’s so lovely to have young people like you three up here.”

“We should get going,” Pandora apologized.

“Yeah, we’ll get to work,” Icarus agreed.

“Go investigate,” Mayes nodded.

“Thank you so much for this.”

“No problem,” she smiled back. “If you need somewhere to stay later, you can always come up here.”

“Thank you,” Pandora replied.

“That’d be great,” Icarus smiled. He considered her briefly for a moment, looking for anything suspicious, but she had to have been one of the sweetest and purest people he had ever interacted with.

“Okay, let’s go down to the town,” Pandora decided.

“Yeah, check out the square,” Mayes agreed.

They took their horses, riding down the winding hill down the cliff to the bay at the bottom. Right by the ocean, they were hit with the scent of sea salt as it washed in with the breeze. It was a very small town, with only ten streets, and the big terracotta square in the center, surrounded by a few planted trees, the freestanding temple amongst all of it, and pastel colored houses painted mint green and pale blue, a nice offset to the sandy stone they were used to seeing everywhere back around Delphos.

There were a handful of shops, as well as the Taverna Aretousa facing out to the water, and a terrace multileveled and fitted around the rock face at the side. The temple to Pelor was in the center.

“Maybe we should check out the temple,” Pandora advised.

“Yeah, why not,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah, we’ll do that,” Icarus agreed.

“Ask about the auspicious harvest.”

They headed in, and Icarus stopped to offer a prayer at the doorway. Two large dark wooden doors were held in place with iron fixtures, pushed away to reveal the inside of the whole building to be washed in white paint under a wooden roof. It had one tall steeple in the center and a few slit windows with free breeze blowing through, simple and quiet on the inside, with murals of olive groves, citrus trees, and farm fields on the wall, as well as a long stretch of mural that mirrored the ocean at the front of the square, with fishing boats out on the bay.

It was very quiet on the inside, though several people lined the pews in silent prayer. They could see an older woman wearing a long white palla with a gold trim, the symbol of Pelor dangling around her neck, and a younger elven woman with strawberry hair also wearing clerical robes, talking to a handful of people sitting and praying.

The older woman glanced up at them as they entered, bowing her head respectfully. Icarus bowed back and moved towards her. She was up at the altar, lighting some candles.

“Good afternoon.”

“Afternoon,” the woman nodded. “What can I do for you?”

“We’re here investigating the missing people around town,” Mayes replied.

“We’re from Delphos,” Icarus explained.

The woman sighed. “Okay. This way, please…” she led them off through a side door into a quieter area as to not disturb those in prayer. “It’s about time somebody was sent up here to help us. I can help you with any questions that you have, to the best of my abilities.”

“We heard something about a new cleric having joined you? After a poor harvest?” Mayes prompted.

“Oh, that's Avra out there, although I can’t imagine she has anything to do with the disappearances.”

“Not at all,” Pandora replied. “We’ve just been trying to get a clearer picture of what's been going on here.”

“Yeah, just all the information laid out,” Mayes agreed.

“We did have a poor harvest,” the woman admitted.

“And Avra came after?” Icarus clarified.

“Just after. We sent for another cleric, from Erran. She was sent over to us. But that was a couple of months before the disappearances started…”

“Of course. We’re just trying to get a timeline, from the things we’ve been told.”

“When you have a poor harvest, or there’s a disease in the village, or whatever… is there anything in particular that you would do?” Pandora wondered. “Any rituals you perform, or prayers that you would say?”

“There are definitely prayers,” she replied. “We worship here twice a fortnight, the whole village comes in to worship. But no rituals of any such, just offering our prayers to Pelor.” She paused, frowning, and then continued. “Some people might tell you that… the missing folks around town are Pelor’s wrath, or something equally as wild. But, I want to assure you, that can't have anything to do with it.”

“Of course,” Icarus nodded. “Why would people be saying that?”

“I guess just… we're a fishing and farming town, and following a poor harvest, everyone thinks we’ve done something, some terrible thing, to upset our God.” She informed them that the harvest was eight weeks ago, while the first disappearances were about five weeks ago. “They’re just pointing fingers, I guess, in lieu of any other thing to blame.”

“Of course,” Pandora replied. “Pelor’s domain is the harvest, obviously, so why would Pelor start causing people to go missing? That’s not his domain.”

“Precisely. Pelor is not a wrathful God.”

“No,” Icarus agreed.

“I would have to say that I wouldn’t even blame the bad harvest on Pelor, myself. We had a particularly hot autumn, and the town has been worshipping properly all year round…”

“Just one of those unfortunate things,” Pandora agreed.

“Nature has its wrath that way sometimes.”

“Sure,” Mayes nodded. “I mean, is there anything else you can tell us, then? Like, did you know any of the people, or see them before they suddenly disappeared?”

“Well… people have been suggesting, that… the missing people disappeared along further north, in one of the bays. They’ve said that, well, I’ve heard from a few who’ve come into the temple, that fishermen who have sailed that way haven't come back. But I couldn’t tell you what bay, just that it's not this one, immediately. Perhaps a little further north?”

“Which makes sense for a fisherman,” Mayes considered, “But not farmhands.”

“Or the merchants,” Pandora added.

“Bartenders…”

“I would say,” the woman continued, “I don’t know how much I’d suggest that you believe everything they say, but… Some townsfolk have a few rumors of what they think might have happened, but, they also think it's Pelors wrath, so, what can I say. I don't know how much you should trust what they say.”

Icarus looked her up and down. She seemed a bit dubious of people’s beliefs, though she appeared honest and reasonably trustworthy. She went on to explain that she recently overheard a conversation that a human man had in the temple recently. “His name is Emmanuel, he’s in charge of the fish market. And he did mention something about knowing more, but I couldn’t tell you where to find him, unless you wait for the market again tomorrow morning.”

“We could do that,” Icarus considered.

“I mean, we’ve got all day to talk to other people around town,” Mayes shrugged.

“Alright, well, thank you so much for your help.”

“Of course,” the woman nodded. “If you need any other help, or you have any more questions, I will be here. Good luck.”

“Thank you,” the three of them replied.

As they walked away, Pandora whispered to the others. “Do you think it's worth talking to the new cleric?”

“I don’t see why not,” Icarus agreed.

“Yeah, why not,” Mayes nodded.

“If she’s from Erran, she’s got an outsider's perspective.”

“I suppose,” Pandora considered.

They approached her, but she was still talking to other people. Mayes listened in, and she seemed to be comforting a young woman whose brother was amongst the missing fishermen. The cleric asked a few gently nudging questions, but all Mayes was able to gather from eavesdropping was that the man was on his boat, and claimed he was to be heading north because no one wanted to go that way anymore, which surely meant there was a multitude of fish to be caught that way. He had gone off about a week and a half ago, and he hadn’t come back since.

Mayes passed on the information, and the three of them sat on a pew to wait as Icarus gave out a few more silent prayers. After another ten minutes, the woman put a comforting hand on the other person’s shoulder, and they looked much more comforted, breathing out a big sigh with a smile before leaving the temple, not noticing the trio at first, but giving them a nod as they headed out.

The cleric took a seat in one of the pews and sighed.

“Hey there,” Mayes began.

“Hi?”

“Hi, um, we’re from Delphos Academy?” Pandora explained. “Um, we’re investigating the disappearance of the people in your village.”

“Oh, sure.”

“We just wanted to know if there’s anything that you could tell us.”

“The person in charge here seems to think that the townsfolk are spreading lots of silly rumors,” Mayes continued, “But as a more outside perspective, we wanted to hear your opinion.”

“Well, there's silly rumors, and then there’s… what do you really think about what’s going on here. Eleni doesn’t believe that we’ve invoked the wrath of Pelor, but um…” she shrugged. “That’s exactly what we’ve done.”

“What makes you say that?” Pandora asked.

“They… I shouldn’t spread rumors about this…”

“It’s not rumors, it's all valid information. We just want to get to the bottom of this.”

Avra pursed her lips. “They brought me in here because they had the worst harvest that they’ve had in ten years. And they have some… outdated practices. Nothing wrong, but nothing that… you know, is boosting their relationship with Pelor. And,” she frowned, “If you ask me, I think they could do with changing their ways.”

“Have you brought about any different practices to the temple?” Pandora probed.

“No, Eleni is quite… set. In her ways.”

“Okay, so… If you’ll forgive me, if she won’t let you do anything different, why did they bring you in, in the first place?”

“Well, precisely,” the cleric gave a bit of an irritated smile. “Who knows. But, such is life in a temple. We try and make changes, but they’re always set in their ways.”

Icarus laughed to himself. “Yeah.”

Pandora examined the woman. She didn’t seem as invested in this area as the other priestess, and quite put out to be here at all. Avra was also extremely beautiful. It was almost distracting. “Where is it that you’re from, originally?”

“Uh, Erran,” she replied.

“Erran, okay. Must be a bit of a change, coming from Erran to this tiny town. Especially when you aren’t really allowed to make change.”

“Well, it’s… unexpected. A lot smaller, and less involved, I guess.”

Icarus thought a moment. “Did you offer to come here, or…?”

“No, the Temple in Erran selected me.”

“Which one were you at?”

She gave him the location of a Pelor temple, but it wasn’t one Icarus was particularly familiar with.

“Do you plan on staying?” Pandora asked.

Avra sighed. “I’m posted here for six months. After that, perhaps I’ll get to go back to Erran.”

“You don't seem too pleased about your posting,” Icarus grinned.

She laughed a bit. “It is a very small town with nothing happening.”

Mayes eyed her. “Aside from people going missing.”

“Well, aside from people going missing,” Avra conceded. “But that’s not exactly… it’s not thrilling, is it? It’s… worrying.”

“Of course.”

“Well, if you’ve got any information you can offer us,” Icarus gave a friendly smile, “Don’t hesitate to find us.”

“I suppose I should tell you what other people around the town have said,” Avra considered.

“Yeah, that’d be very helpful.”

“I personally think Pelor is to blame, but, I have heard people saying that it’s sirens attacking the village. Luring the men away,” she laughed.

“That’d make sense, if it was just men going missing,” Pandora considered.

“That’s true,” Mayes agreed.

“They say they’ve heard singing at night,” the cleric continued.

“Well, some of them went missing in the middle of the day,” Icarus countered, “So…”

“I’m sure that sirens can sing in the day as well as the night,” Pandora reasoned.

Icarus laughed.

“Whatever you believe about that rumor,” Avra shrugged, “I might as well tell you, I don’t want to hinder your investigation by holding anything back.”

“No, of course,” Pandora agreed. “We appreciate your honesty.”

“Yeah, any and all information is good,” Icarus smiled. “Well, thank you, and like I said, if you’ve got any more information… We’ll be around for a few days, maybe?”

“Sure,” Avra smiled back. “Be good to see you again.”

“You too.”

Avra looked him dead in the eye with a slightly flirty smile.

“See you around,” Icarus grinned.

“And you.”

They walked to the door, and Icarus whispered to the others. “She was cute.”

Pandora sort of tugged him out as Mayes followed behind. Icarus pulled his arm back once they were out on the street. “Hey!”

Mayes scrunched up their nose in distaste. “I don’t trust her.”

“No,” Pandora agreed. “Like, if you were a cleric of a God…”

“If,” Icarus teased, gesturing to himself.

Icarus and Mayes burst into laughter, leaning on each other as Pandora tried to explain herself. “I’m talking in a hypothetical sense about a situation that has nothing to do with you, Icarus!”

“I know!” he grinned.

“If you were hypothetically a cleric of a God,” Pandora continued, pausing to shush Icarus once more as he made an exaggerated shrug, as if wondering what that would be like.

“You tell him, Pandora,” Mayes interjected.

“Would you really go around like, besmirching that God?” Pandora reasoned. “And saying like,  _ this God is responsible for the hardships in my town. _ Like, surely you would say,  _ maybe it is due to this God, but we can rectify this by doing this,  _ or  _ it is this way because we didn’t do this in the first place _ .”

“No, I agree,” Icarus admitted.

“She didn’t seem to be very holy, for a holy woman.”

Mayes chuckled. “I know. I just kind of got a vibe off her that I didn’t really like.”

Icarus definitely got a vibe that he liked. “Well, you know how people can be,” he defended. “If you’re in a position that you don’t enjoy, you’re not gonna think the best of things.”

“Yeah, I understand that she is put out,” Pandora admitted. “But like, to be taking it out on Pelor? Like… no. I’d say she’d be more… It would make more sense for her to be angry at the priestess rather than at Pelor.”

“Well, I guess we should just find out what’s going on. You're right, she… Even if Pelor has unleashed a wrath upon this town, she should be helping people to feel better about that. But, like I said, she’s in a position that she doesn’t enjoy, that she might just not be…” Icarus smiled off into the air, “Enjoying it.”

Mayes squinted at him. “Stop thinking about enjoying positions with her.”

Icarus blushed a bit, and moved forwards to clear his throat. “Sirens.”

“Yeah, sirens,” Pandora considered.

“See, that makes sense,” Mayes reasoned. “She treated it like it was nothing, which is why I’m suspicious.”

“That’s one of the first things I thought when they said that only men were going missing.”

“Same,” Mayes agreed.

“Really?” Icarus frowned. “Well, let’s check out the taverna.”

They saw the sign across the square, right on the edge of the town above the cliff face, for the Taverna Aretousa. A single story building, with a single upstairs room, the terrace stretched out in small platforms down and around the side of the cliff, overhanging the water. It was afternoon by now, and the tavern was open. They pushed inside. It was dingy on the inside, though nicely decorated and painted a bright color to make up for the lack of natural light.

It wasn’t quiet, and fairly busy, but not that lively. People sat mostly by themselves or in twos, eating their food and making idle chit chat. There was no music or anything peppy, perhaps because it was early in the day, or perhaps because of the current atmosphere about town. Behind the bar was a short woman with human and dwarven features, tidying up glasses and putting them away.

They approached the barkeep, introducing themselves.

“Finally!” she cried. “My brother Mario has been missing for three weeks, nobody has been taking me seriously.”

“Well, we’re here to take you seriously,” Pandora replied. “And I’m sorry that you’ve waited for so long.”

“It’s okay. I appreciate you being here. He said he was going out to meet somebody at the Cove. And I assumed it was his girlfriend, but he never came home. I spoke to his girlfriend, and she said she knew nothing about it.”

“The Cove?”

“There's a cove a little further up the coast somewhere that… boys like to take women.”

“Is it north?” Mayes asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Convenient,” Pandora frowned.

“And who is his girlfriend?” Icarus asked.

“Her name is Hesta,” the barkeep replied. “She works in the shop. General Store. She’ll probably just tell you that Mario has eloped with someone else.”

“When was this?” Pandora asked. “Was this like in the evening, or during the day?”

“It was late at night. He was on shift, and he asked me if I would cover for him. He was going out to meet someone at the Cove.”

“And then he never came back.”

“No.”

“Did he take anything with him?” Icarus asked.

“No, he left his stuff here, he took off his apron, and off he went.”

“Just suddenly?” Pandora asked. “Without warning?”

“Not without warning, I mean, he had been watching the clock all night. He was obviously planning something, so I just assumed he was off to see Hesta.”

“Did he look himself? Or did he look weird? Out of it, at all?”

“Not… Not like, dazed, but, a little…”

“Distracted?”

“Dreamy?” Mayes prompted.

“A little dreamy, yeah,” the woman nodded.

“Like, kinda…” Mayes rested an elbow on the bar and sighed, looking longingly into the woman’s eyes.

“Not like that,” she revised. “More… worried?”

“Okay…”

“Um, but I thought he was just getting worried about time, like he was going to be late or something.”

“But he didn’t say who he was going to meet?” Pandora clarified. “Or what they were going to do?”

“No. I mean, I didn’t want to know anyway. If it was going to be him and his girlfriend, I didn’t want to hear about it.”

“No, of course.”

“Feel like an idiot now.”

“Did he give any indication of when he’d be back?” Icarus asked.

“No, just that I’d have to cover him for the rest of the night.”

“Okay,” Pandora nodded. “This is good information, though.”

“Yeah, thank you,” Mayes followed.

“I don’t suppose you could sort of direct us to the Cove? Could you?”

“I don't know,” the woman replied. “But… Emmanuel over there might know.” She gestured across the tavern to a man sitting quietly in the corner, nursing a large ale. He was a handsome but slightly rough looking middle aged human man, looking kind of miserable over his drink. The bartender went on to inform them that he was due to get married this week, but he had been here drinking every night for the last few nights.

“Cold feet?” Pandora suggested.

“Maybe,” the woman shrugged.

“Should we grab some drinks and go over?” Icarus suggested.

“Let’s go have a chat,” Pandora agreed.

The bartender set up some drinks for them. “Take them over, I’m sure he could use the pep up of talking to somebody.”

“Thanks for your help,” Mayes nodded.

The man was tucked by a window, the shutters opened to the sea, but completely shadowed as he sat hunched over his beer, chin resting on the top of the glass.

“Anyone sitting here?” Icarus asked.

Emmanuel glanced up. “...No?”

“Mind if we join you?”

“...Sure? Emmanuel.”

“Icarus.”

“Mayes,” Mayes followed.

“Nice to meet you,” Pandora sat. “I’m Pandora.”

“Nice to meet you,” the man echoed.

“We’re from Delphos,” Icarus explained. “We’re here to look into the missing people?”

“And we happened to hear that you might know a bit more about it,” Mayes added.

Emmanuel shrugged. “Don’t know who’s telling you that.”

“We heard you’re in charge of the fish market,” Pandora continued. “You must hear a lot of things.”

“I hear that a lot of fishermen are going missing. It’s not great for my trade.”

“So we hear as well. We want to find them as soon as possible so everything can be business as usual.”

“Yeah, that’d be good, that’d be good.”

Emmanuel was a little bit tipsy.

“So is there anything you can tell us about this cove to the north?” Mayes pressed. “That people like to go?”

“Nothing special, it’s a beach. I can tell you where it is.”

“Exactly.”

“That’d be helpful,” Pandora nodded.

Emmanuel’s eyes sparked a bit as he considered the three of them. “If you’ll help me.”

“Help you with what?”

“I’m… missing something too. Not a person. I’ll tell you where to find the Cove, if you can help me find some missing jewelry.”

“Missing jewelry, eh?”

“Yeah.”

Pandora folded her arms. “Wouldn’t happen to be, like, a wedding ring, or something, would it?”

Emmanuel blanched. “...Maybe.”

“A little bird tells me you’re getting married.”

“...Maybe it is.”

Mayes shook their head and sighed. “When did you last have it?”

“Maybe three days ago.”

“Where?”

“...I don’t know, somewhere.”

“Right.”

“Not particularly helpful for us,” Pandora needled, “If we’re meant to find it.”

“You’re… investigators,” the man defended. “I’m sure you could do some investigating.”

“Do you think you lost it, or someone stole it?”

“I dunno. Had it, and then I didn’t have it. I’ve been drinking.”

“Whereabouts were you the last time you saw it?” Icarus pressed.

“...I…” he thought. “Went to pay some respects to the temple. And then, I don’t know, that was afternoon… went home… did I have it then? I don't remember… Next morning I didn’t have it.”

“Okay,” Pandora nodded. “And did you see anyone else in that time? Like, did you meet anyone for dinner, or did you see family, or…?”

“Nope. No one else. Haven’t seen my fiancée in three days, can’t look her in the eye.”

He hadn’t looked any of them in the eye either.

“Well,” Pandora glanced to the others.

“So you think you might have lost it in the temple,” Icarus concluded.

“Maybe, or at home,” Emmanuel shrugged. “But I turned my home over, can’t find it there.”

“So maybe we’ll look at the temple first,” Pandora decided. “Before we go root around in your home.”

“Maybe.”

“Did you ask the temple?” Icarus wondered.

Emmanuel frowned. “No.”

Mayes leaned back, crossing their arms.

“I guess we’ll go and ask the temple for him,” Pandora whispered to Icarus, who was looking slightly annoyed.

Icarus turned back to the man with a plastered smile. “We’ll check it out.”

“And in return, you will tell us how to get to the Cove,” Pandora reminded him.

“Yes, when you find the rings,” Emmanuel agreed.

“So it's two rings?”

“Yes, the rings.”

“RIght, both rings,” Mayes echoed.

“Were they in a box, or…?” Icarus pressed.

“They were in a little red leather pouch,” the man held up his hands to demonstrate the size. “With a letter J inscribed on the front.”

“J? That’s a weird way to spell Emmanuel,” Icarus teased.

The man met him with a flat stare.

“I was kidding,” Icarus explained. “It was a joke.”

“J for joke,” Pandora grinned.

“Yeah.”

The man did not look impressed. “No. J for Jacest, it's my fiancée's name.”

“We should go have a look then,” Mayes decided.

“Can we find you here still?” Pandora asked.

The man bowled right over her question. “But you can’t let anyone know that I’m missing the wedding rings!”

“No, of course not. Absolute discretion.”

“Our lips are sealed,” Icarus agreed.

The man squinted at them. “Can I trust you?”

“Can we trust you?” Icarus returned.

“Yeah, you can trust me.”

Icarus wasn’t sure, but the man wasn’t making any effort on his face to conceal the fact that he was definitely hiding something from them. He seemed perhaps a bit too embarrassed to give the full story, and a bit too drunk to keep a poker face.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Pandora probed.

“About the Cove? No, not yet.”

“About the Cove, about the rings, about… the wedding in a few days?”

The man sighed and smiled off. “Ah, my wedding. She’s beautiful.”

“Tell us about her,” Pandora invited.

“Ah, this beautiful, golden, sun tanned skin… blue eyes… long, red hair… No, blonde hair,” he slapped himself. “Blonde hair, um…”

“How long have you known each other?”

“Years, years. Yeah.”

Mayes frowned. “When did you get engaged?”

“About six months ago.”

“Okay…”

The man grinned to himself. “Very impressive. I asked her father and everything,” he hiccuped.

Mayes gave a nod that appeared approving, but was anything but. “Well done.”

Icarus stared at him, resting his head on his chin and tapping his fingers on the table. Noticing the stare, the man copied his position defensively.

Icarus watched him shift uncomfortably for a moment. “You seeing anyone else?”

“Ah, no!”

“Who else?”

The man chuckled at the preposterous suggestion. “No one else…”

“Red hair, blonde hair,” Pandora shrugged.

“No, I’m just…”

“You seeing someone by the Cove?” Mayes guessed.

“No! Just a little distracted,” he defended. “Stupid priestess,” he mumbled.

“The new priestess?”

“Oh, so you’ve got a thing for the new priestess,” Icarus grinned.

The man went very red in the face. “No…”

“Is that what you were doing in the temple?” Mayes grinned.

“No! ...Maybe.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s very beautiful…”

“She is, isn’t she,” Pandora prodded.

“A bit distracted, speaking to her.”

“Interesting,” Mayes mused.

“Did you still have the rings when you last spoke to her?” Pandora asked.

“I had them… I had them when I went into the temple,” Emmanuel realized. “And then I don’t know, next morning I didn’t have them.”

“And you spoke to her when you were at the temple?”

“...Maybe.”

“Okay.”

“But she’s a priestess! You insinuated… a  _ priestess _ ,” he defended. “You can’t tell anybody.”

“Of course not,” Pandora placated. “Like we said, our lips are sealed.”

“It’s all good,” Mayes agreed.

“We’ll go find out for you,” Icarus followed.

“That’d be good,” the man nodded.

“Yeah. See you later,” Mayes replied.

“You come find me when. If you find out.”

“Of course.”

“You’ll be here?” Icarus clarified.

“Yeah. I’ll be here.”

Icarus pointed at him, giving a friendly smile, but the man responded by pointing two fingers between his eyes and the tritons. Mayes gave a little salute, and the three of them stood up as Emmanual drank a lot more from his tankard.

“Let’s go check it out,” Mayes urged the others.

They filed out of the bar. “What’s his problem?” Icarus frowned.

“That was weird,” Pandora announced.

“What, I called him out on the fact that he’s flirting with someone else?”

“When he’s about to get married. Gross.”

“Jackass.”

They headed back to the temple, entering again. They could see Eleni back at the altar, moving things around and setting up for the evening. They looked around between the pews, but didn’t find anything aside from a couple of copper pieces that had likely been dropped as the offering bowl went around, but no rings. Mayes grabbed the coins and tossed them in the offering basket.

“Let’s see if they have a lost and found,” Pandora suggested.

Eleni looked up at the sound of the coins going in the offering bin. “You three again!”

“Hi there,” Pandora replied. “Um, this is really kind of embarrassing, do you have a lost and found?”

“What have you lost?”

“It’s a little red pouch, it’s got a J on it. I think it must have dropped when we were here before.”

“Hm…” she went to get out a box, digging through it. “I can’t see anything…”

“Is Avra around?” Icarus asked.

“No, she just left.”

“Oh.”

“Is she finished for the day?” Pandora asked. “Or is she going out?”

“I think she’s finished for the day,” Eleni replied. “Headed home early.”

“Huh,” Mayes considered. “Do you know where we could find her?”

“Yeah, maybe we dropped it when we were talking to her,” Icarus followed.

“Oh, um…” Eleni thought. “She does live nearby, just on the outskirts of town. It’s… house is called Castos. Somewhere on the corner of the cove.”

“Can you tell us whereabouts the cove is?” 

“Oh, I just meant our bay here, this one.”

“Oh, this bay, okay. Thank you.”

“No problem. Glad I could help. Hope you find your pouch.”

The tree chorused their thanks and turned to leave.

“Okay, let’s see if we can find Castos,” Icarus decided. “Maybe she’s found it, keeping hold of it for some reason.”

It only took them an hour or so to pick around all the different streets, looking at the house names, until they found a small village at the edge of Ithia right on the sea. It looked quite run down compared to the other villas, and where it had been painted white, paint was flaking away to reveal the sandstone underneath. There were some old flower vines climbing up the outside, but they didn’t look intentional and tended to like some of the other houses.

There was a small red door at the front. Mayes knocked, and as they did, the door swung open slightly. “Huh.”

“Hello?” Pandora called.

“Avra?” Icarus followed.

They heard slight movement inside.

“Hello?” Pandora called again.

“Is your door okay?” Mayes asked.

There was no response. Mayes decided to tiptoe inside. Their feet were fairly silent on the terracotta floor, and they noted that they were padding through dust and dirt. They heard a creak, and looking over the corridor, they could see two open shutters doors at the back creaking slightly in the wind. The dust seemed to have blown in from outside.

Inside, things looked old and unused. The furniture was duty, cobwebs in the corners. It did not look like the house fit the slightly stuck up cleric they met earlier. Mayes looked over their shoulder at the others in the doorway, and signalled them in.

They crept inside. Icarus hugged his arms around himself, trying to stop his scale mail armour from clinking. They could see a few open archways, a larger room down the end, and a staircase going up with an iron railing.

“Should we each take a room, or should we stick together?” Icarus whispered.

“I’ll head upstairs,” Mayes replied in a hushed voice.

Mayes went up as Pandora peeled off to head further into the house, while Icarus turned to explore the opposite side of the first floor.

Mayes, having been prepared for a moment like this for so long, silently padded step to step, hand on the railing, balancing their weight as to not make a sound. At the top, they saw a small landing with two rooms, afternoon sun spilling in through more open shutters. In one of the rooms was a very clean looking pristine bed, the rest of the room with brushes of leaves in the corners, and more cobwebs and dust. The other room was a completely disused bathroom, clutter and dirt at the bottom of the bath. Nobody had used that room in a long time.

Suspiciously, they did notice that there was a fresh scent in the bedroom. The sheets had been freshly cleaned, despite the fact that everything else was filthy.

Pandora headed down to the back, an open kitchen and dining area with terracotta tiles on the floor, open shutters to the back garden. Instantly, she could see the small garden was completely overgrown. The vines spread out across the floor, and a small creature, maybe a mouse, scurried through the back of the garden. The kitchenette looked completely disused. Very quietly, she opened cupboards and looked in baskets. There weren’t even the remnants of anything fresh, nothing rotten. It was simply abandoned, empty, with nothing there at all.

  
  


Icarus was on the other side of the house. He walked into a lounge room, his scale mail making a bit of unwanted noise as he stepped inside. There were a few nice wooden seats with plush cushions.

Sitting up on the back of one of them, looking out at the door, was Avra. She was sitting with her hands on the side of the bench, legs crossed, as she smiled at him. “Hi.”

Something washed over Icarus’s mind. He was absolutely charmed by her. “Hi,” he smiled back.

She leaned forwards. “Aw, you came to my house… That’s sweet of you.”

“We were looking for you,” Icarus explained.

“You probably shouldn't be.” She beckoned him with a finger. “Come here.”

“Okay.”   
  


Icarus walked up, and she sat forwards a bit to stroke his cheek. “You’re gonna convince your friends to leave,” she smiled. “You understand? Icarus?”

“Sure,“ he agreed.

She leaned in closer. “Thank you  _ so _ much. That’s so nice of you.”

“That’s okay. You want us to go now?”

“Hmm… What did you come for?”

“We were looking for rings. Emmanuel’s rings.”

She chuckled. “That bore.”

“Yeah,” Icarus smiled at her dreamily.

“If I did have them… You wouldn’t tell the others, would you?”

“Well, we told him we’d take them back to him.”

She frowned a bit, and her stare intensified. “You’re not going to tell the others.”

He blinked a bit as her will was forced over him, the magic settling into his thoughts. “Okay.”

She smiled again. “That’s what I thought. Now come here,” she beckoned him again, a single finger drawing him enticingly closer. “Give us a kiss.”

“Okay.”

He leaned in for a kiss, and as she pressed her lips to his, he felt a searing pain shoot through his skull.

  
  



	8. Stalemate, Episode Eight

As Pandora rooted through the kitchen, she heard a faint conversation from the other side of the house. Although she couldn’t tell who the second voice was, she could recognize Icarus.

Pandora kept quiet, tentatively moving from the kitchen. As she took a few steps down the hallway, and her tail bumped against a small piece of rubble, sending it skidding down the hallway and knocking against the open doorway.

Inside the room, Icarus saw Avra turn her head to the door and frown.

The sound was noisy enough that Mayes heard it from upstairs. They snuck back down, Reaching the bottom, they saw Pandora standing in the hall, but Mayes was so silent that the tiefling did not see them. They tapped her shoulder, putting a finger to their lips, but Pandora yelped anyway.

Avra leaned on her hand, looking at Icarus. She gestured towards the door.

Icarus leaned back from the kiss, holding his aching head. “Agh...Yeah…”

Avra’s voice echoed in his mind.  _ “Well, get rid of them, then.” _

“...Okay,” he smiled weakly before turning, heading back out into the corridor.

Pandora watched him exit. “Hello.”

“Hi.”

“Hey,” Mayes followed.

“We need to leave,” Icarus declared. “There’s nothing really here.”

“Well, no, that’s what’s weird,” Pandora frowned. “Like, she said that this is where Avra lived, but it’s…”

“Well maybe we got the wrong address.”

“...It’s Villa Castos.”

“We should just keep looking.”

“...Where? There’s no other Villa Castos.”

Icarus shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I just think…” Mayes crossed their arms. “I don’t know what you guys found, but like… everything is really kind of dirty and abandoned. Except, upstairs, the bed is like… perfectly fine condition. It’s like it’s been slept in, and used.”

“Well there’s absolutely nothing in here,” Icarus repeated, “So…” he started to make his way towards the front door.

“Are you sure?” Pandora squinted.

“Yeah.”

“Who were you talking to, then?”

“Oh, myself,” Icarus lied.

“In multiple voices?”

“Well… yeah… sometimes you gotta do that…” Icarus floundered. “To not... feel alone?”

Pandora didn’t think that was something Icarus would do. At first, she considered that she didn’t really know him that well, but then she realized how ridiculous the lie was. She had heard a woman’s voice.

Pandora pushed past him to enter the other room. Icarus grabbed out for her arm, but she slipped past.

“Hey buddy,” Mayes put up a hand towards Icarus. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“We need to get out of here right now,” he repeated, pursuing Pandora.

“Are you really that panicked about an empty house?”

Pandora walked into the lounge area, and saw nothing. There was just a dusty room, some old furniture, a fireplace, and some long long dead flowers, wilted in a vase down to dry, brown stalks.

Icarus linked his arm with hers again. “Come on.”

“Who were you talking to?”

“...Myself.”

“No you weren’t.”

“There’s nothing in here,” Icarus reasoned.

“There’s something… There’s something weird going on,” Pandora pulled her arm back.

“I don’t think- Come on, let’s just go.”

“Hey Icarus,” Mayes stepped into the room.

“Mhm?”

They stared into him. “Are you lying to us?”

“No.”

Tritons didn’t visibly sweat, but it was clear in every muscle of his face that Icarus was lying, trying desperately to avoid eye contact.

“So okay, let me get this straight,” Mayes sighed. “Not only are you lying to us- ”

“No…”

“You’re also lying to us about  _ not _ lying to us.”

“What?”

“Icarus…”

“Yeah?”

“I can see through this.”

“...Okay. Let’s go.”

“Why?”

In concern, Pandora took a long hard look at his face. His eyes were a bit bloodshot. “What happened?”

“Nothing. Just need to get out of here.”

Pandora turned to Mayes. “Something really weird is going on.”

“I can tell,” Mayes agreed. “Why do we need to leave?”

“Because I’ve asked you to,” Icarus pressed. “There’s nothing here.”

Icarus heard the voice in his head again. _ “Oh, have you searched the back garden yet?” _

“Have we searched the back garden yet?” Icarus echoed.

Mayes crossed their arms. “No…”

“It’s overgrown,” Pandora shrugged. “No one has been out there for years.”

“Maybe there’s something there,” Icarus pushed.

“You changed kind of quickly, there,” Mayes observed.

“Well, you don’t want to leave.”

“Let’s go have a look in the garden, then. You lead the way.”

“...Sure.” Icarus led the way to the garden, heading back down the corridor and through the kitchen to the old back door, which was slightly open. It was wild and overgrown, with vines tangled through a stone bench and a broken statue. It was a sad visage of what used to be a nice backyard. They searched around, but there was nothing to find.

“There we go,” Icarus declared. “We searched everywhere.”

Mayes was still eyeing him. “Okay.”

Pandora hung back, looking closer at the room. She was so certain that she had heard someone in there, she was determined to find something. She saw a slight indent on the sofa, but there were no footprints on the dusty floor apart from hers. Whatever was here wasn’t visible. She left, frustrated, and feeling that something invisible was definitely hiding in there.

Suddenly, Pandora recognized the feeling of magic grabbing at her mind, reminiscent of similar spells she had used before in training. She whirled around before the feeling could latch on, shaking it away and looking for the source. A woman’s laugh echoed from somewhere in the house.

Mayes gave Icarus another suspicious look before angrily marching back inside. As the pair entered, Pandora walked right up to the triton. “Icarus, I’m really sorry about this!”

She reached out to slap him across the face, but he ducked out of the way. “Woah!”

“Woah,” Mayes put out a hand.

“Something just tried to get into my head,” Pandora explained.

“Huh… And you’re slapping Icarus for that?” Mayes blinked.

“Wow, okay,” Icarus grumbled. “Rude.”

“No, I think there’s something in his head,” she pressed.

“Okay, we need to get out of there. This is getting to you.”

“Getting to me?”

“Yeah.”

“Something’s got to you already!”

Icarus grabbed Pandora, lifting her into the air to carry her out of the house.

Pandora squirmed in his grip. “Get your hands off me!”

As Icarus walked past, Mayes swung a punch into his back.

“Agh!” Icarus shouted. As the blow connected, he felt a veil of magic dissipate back into the reaches of his mind. It was as if something had been lifted from his vision.

Icarus put Pandora down.

Pandora brushed herself off. “You okay?”

“You good?” Mayes followed.

Icarus stood silently for a moment, and then looked angrily around the house. “Son of a  _ bitch!” _

“Who else is in here?” Pandora pressed.

“Uh, the, Avra. The girl from the temple.”

As the others followed, he marched back into the room where she had been. Avra was once again sitting there, laughing. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Mayes frowned.

“What did you do to him?” Pandora demanded.

“Mmm…” Avra grinned. “Nothing that exciting.”

“What are you?”

She shrugged. “A cleric.”

“You’re more than just a cleric.”

She shrugged again.

“You care to be honest? Because it’s real easy to tell if you’re lying,” Mayes deadpanned.

“I’m not particularly trying to pull the wool over your eyes,” she replied.

“Then talk.”

“Why don’t you talk? What are you doing here?”

“We’re here investigating the people who went missing.”

“You won’t find them in this house.”

“You know what happened to them, then,” Pandora guessed.

“No.”

As the other two interrogated her, Icarus silently cast a bit of his own healing magic. Avra really had done a number on him earlier, and he felt absolutely awful.

Avra was definitely not telling them everything, but it didn’t seem like she was entirely lying.

“Why were you trying to get me to leave, and take these two with me?” Icarus asked.

“Just so you can get out of my house,” Avra reasoned.

“I mean, that’s fair, but also we’re trying to find information about people that are missing. And you  _ really _ hurt me.”

She tilted her head, appraising him. “Sorry. You’re a terrible kisser.”

She gave another little smile, and there was a tense silence as the two stared each other down.

“Anyway,” Mayes continued, “We were just wondering, based on what we asked your… boss… if you might know something about someone’s wedding rings. If you don’t have anything to do with the missing people, then… we don’t have a problem with you.”

“Oh… these?” She snapped her fingers, conjuring the rings into her hand.

“Those,” Pandora frowned.

“Yeah,” Mayes confirmed.

Avra considered the rings. “They were so pretty, though…”

“Not yours though, are they?”

“I don’t care.”

“You’re going to give those back,” Pandora ordered.

Avra tilted her head back and forth, mocking her tone.  _ “You’re going to give those back.” _

“Are you making fun of my accent?”

Avra giggled. “Why do I want to give them back? What do you have for me?”

“What do you want?”

“Mm… a favor?”

“What kind of favor?” Mayes probed.

“I don’t know yet.”

Pandora shook her head. “What is your deal?”

“What is  _ your _ deal?”

“That’s not what I asked- ”

“You’re very pretty…”

Pandora glowered at her.

“I could ask for one of your souls...” Avra mused.

The suggestion was concerning, but Pandora still couldn’t place what kind of being the woman could be.

“You work for a temple,” Icarus recalled.

“Do I?” Avra grinned.

“Well, that’s what I’m asking. Were you actually sent here?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Mayes gave a dry laugh. “So what, you just show up in this town and decide that you’re gonna have a little fun with the locals?”

“Yeah,” she shrugged. “I mean, they were sending someone over from Erran, but…”

“You got them?”

“...He was an easy catch.”

Icarus stiffened, and then drew his sword.

Avra raised a brow in offense. “Excuse me?”

Icarus stared at her. “You killed a templeman.”

In a second, her visage changed, as Avra on took the form of Pandora. The real Pandora was racking her brain, but still couldn’t place the strange woman.

“Cool it, Icarus,” Mayes warned. “Just gonna talk. Surely we can negotiate something.”

Avra squinted at Mayes through a copy of Pandora’s eyes. “Are you in charge here? You seem like you’re in charge here.”

“No one is in charge,” the original Pandora argued.

“No one is in charge,” Mayes echoed. “We’re working together.”

Avra shrugged with Pandora’s shoulders. “Yeah, but you seem to be a little more switched on than these two?”

“...Okay, ouch.”

“I would ask for your soul,” Avra frowned, “But it seems that I don’t need to corrupt that, honey. You’ve already done that plenty for yourself.”

“Excuse me?”

“Enough talk,” Pandora stepped forwards, shoving in front of the others to stand in front of her doppelg ä nger. “Tell us what’s going on here.”

“...Those eyes, honey…” Avra murmured. “Let me get a proper look at you…”

She put a finger under Pandora’s chin as the tiefling pulled back.

“My my…” Avra grinned. Switching to Infernal, a language neither of the others spoke, she said,  _ “One of his, huh? The Prince of Ice himself…” _

“What? What are you talking about?”

_ “You don’t look that much like him, but, I’d recognize those eyes anywhere.” _

“What are you talking about?” Pandora demanded.

Avra giggled again, and then returned to her original form, speaking Common once more. “A favor,” she declared, looking to the whole group. “Can we agree?”

“How soon do you want to call that favor in?” Mayes asked.

“Hmm… Within six months?”

“I don’t trust you,” Icarus frowned.

“I don’t trust you,” she returned. “You pulled a sword on me.”

“Yeah, because you’ve killed someone who was sent here. From a temple.”

“I don’t  _ care _ about that.”

Pandora watched her carefully. “What do you care about?”

“Not much, actually.”

“Just in it for yourself, huh.”

“Mmm… Myself and a few others.”

“Others?” Icarus prompted.

“Do you work for someone?” Pandora questioned.

“Everybody works for someone,” Avra answered.

“Well who do you- ”

“I don’t work for  _ him,” _ Avra pointed at Pandora’s face.

“Who are you talking about?” Pandora interrogated. “I have no idea what you’re referring to!”

Avra looked her firmly in the eyes, speaking in Infernal once again.  _ “Levistus.” _

Pandora blinked, and thought. She recalled reading that name in one of the older texts at the school, in a similar part of the library to where she had read about Baphomet. She stiffened, taking an unconscious step back.

Icarus looked between the two women. “What did you just say to her?”

“None of your business,” Avra replied. “Otherwise I would have said it in your tongue.” She looked back to Pandora. “Speaking one sister to another.”

Icarus stepped protectively in front of Pandora.

On the other side of the room, Mayes had gone quiet, looking to the floor. “What do you mean, my soul is corrupt?”

“She’s just trying to mess with your head,” Icarus reasoned.

Avra gave a half-interested wave in Mayes’ general direction. “Oh, you’ve got that thing clinging to your back.”

Mayes bristled. “Shut up,” they whispered.

Avra grinned, and then vanished, appearing again directly behind them as she appraised their back. “Yeah, fixed on there good and proper.”

She folded her arms, addressing the full group once more. “Listen, I’ve got nothing to do with these disappearances. I might have sent a couple of people that direction, but… There’s something up living in the Cove. I’d love to know what it is…”

“So it’s nothing to do with you?” Pandora clarified.

“No. Just convenient.”

“Do you know the way to the Cove?” Mayes asked.

“Yeah. For a favor,” she repeated.

Mayes pursued their lips, and then shrugged. “Yeah, I’ll take it.”

“Mayes,” Icarus warned, “No, Mayes.”

“Mayes!” Pandora gasped.

Mayes didn’t drop eye contact with the woman.

Avra grinned. “Shake on it?”

“Mayes, no!” Pandora repeated. “Don’t trust her!”

Mayes held out a hand.

Avra’s grin split wider. “Kiss on it?”

Mayes leaned back a bit. “Umm… The handshake was offered first…”

Pandora stepped in front of them. “Don’t do this, Mayes. We may not know who she is, but she is no good.”

“I know, but we need the information or the rings, one or the other.”

“I’m sure someone else in the town knows how to get to the Cove. We’re done with her.”

Avra sighed. “You’re so boring. Fine, shake on it.”

Mayes held out a hand again, and Avra reached through Pandora’s arm to shake it. When she pulled her hand back, the bag with the rings was left in Mayes’ hand.

“Okay,” Avra sighed. “I guess you’re done with me now.”

She summoned another item into her hand, a small roll of paper, before flicking it towards them. In the same motion, she vanished again.

Pandora caught the paper, absolutely livid.

Icarus looked down. “Let’s get out of here.”

Pandora was already angrily marching out.

Icarus let out a long sigh. “You shouldn’t have done that, Mayes.”

Mayes looked at the empty space Avra left behind. “Yeah, I know.”

The others followed behind, leaving Villa Castos. Glancing back up at it, it was still filthy and abandoned looking. It was strange anyone believed that anyone could have lived here.

Unrolling the small piece of paper, it instructed them to travel noth about a mile and a half, with a basic symbol designating the location of the cove.

Mayes lifted the rings. “We should go give these back to Emmanuel.”

“I want to stop in on the Temple on the way, too,” Icarus replied.

“Yeah.”

It was coming up to late afternoon by now.

“We need to go back and get the horses,” Icarus decided.

“Fine,” Pandora grumbled.

“I’m sorry I picked you up.”

“No, it’s not that…”

“...The… demon thing...?”

“Yeah. She was saying some messed up stuff.”

“That’s what they do, try and mess with you, Don’t think on whatever she was saying. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Maybe at some point, when I’ve done a bit of reading.”

“Sure. And Mayes, don’t think too hard on anything.”

“I’m not,” they replied.

“Mayes, you made a deal with her!” Pandora groaned.

“You did make a deal with her,” Icarus echoed.

They shrugged. “Yeah, so that neither of you two had to.”

“We weren’t going to!”

“We needed the- Look,” they sighed, “I’m going to let myself have a moral freak out about that later. Right now, we just need to stick to what we’re doing. Okay? We came here for a reason. So let’s get these rings back to Emmanuel so he can stop drinking himself silly every night. I guess, tell the temple about their friend… And go have a nice dinner with the cute people on the farm.”

Icarus chuckled a bit.

“Yeah,” Pandora sighed.

They headed back into town. They found Emmanuel where they had left him, sitting in the back corner of the taverna. Icarus threw the ring bag at him.

“Get a shower!” Pandora ordered. “Scrub up!”

“Oh, oh my Gods, oh my Gods!” Emmanuel grinned. “Thank you!”

“Fix yourself up,” Icarus directed.

“Don’t make her cry on her big day,” Pandora pushed.

Emmanuel put up his hands. “Alright.”

Icarus wasn’t done. “You think she deserves to have someone that drinks their sorrows away because they fucked up once?”

“...Alright…” he tucked the rings into his tunic pocket.

“Do better.”

“...Alright.” He stood up on slightly wobbly feet.

“Go sober up,” Mayes advised.

“I think I will. I think I will. Now, the Cove- ”

“We know.”

“Unless there’s anything else you can tell us about it, aside from how to get there,” Pandora offered.

“Hm…” he considered. “Tide.”

“Tide?”

“Tide’s are late up here. Like… two hours after sunrise, tide comes in. Long way out the beach… Don’t sleep there,” he pointed an unsteady warning finger at them. “Not pleasant.”

Mayes gave him a look. “Okay.”

Pandora sighed. “Anything else?”

“Some sort of underwater cave…” he continued. “You’ll see a rock out in the sea. Not too far out, just like out, out in the sea… And there’s an underwater cave.”

“Okay.”

“Appreciate it,” Mayes nodded.

Emmanuel beamed. “I helped.”

“You sure did,” Mayes mumbled.

Pandora was disgusted. “Go drink some water or something.”

“Yes ma’am,” he stumbled out of the bar. They heard him walk down the street, singing a merry tune.

“Well, someone’s happy,” Icarus offered.

“Yeah, I guess we made his day,” Mayes replied.

Pandora started walking. “Let’s go to the temple.”

Icarus’s face dropped. “Yeah…”

For the third time that day, they headed back to the small temple of Pelor, in the center of Ithia’s square. It was quiet inside as they pushed open the doors. Nobody was here at this time of day.

Back in the small temple with wooden pews, murals of olive groves and fishing boats on the walls, they saw Eleni, the human priestess, in her long white palla, standing at the front and sorting things out for the next day.

“My lady Eleni?” Icarus called. “Can we speak with you in private for a moment?”

“Of course,” she replied. “What is it this time, my child?”

“Um… Avra?”

“Mhm?”

“Is… Um… Not… The person that was supposed to be sent to you. From Erran.”

“...Okay?”

“She… did away with the person that was sent, and took his place. And, I believe, has been harming some of the people in this town. Controlling them.”

Eleni leaned back a bit, holding the symbol of Pelor to her chest as she grew quite emotional.

“I’m sorry.”

“Where does this information come from?” she asked.

“Avra herself,” Pandora replied as Mayes nodded.

“We went to your home, that you told us about,” Icarus explained. “It was decrepit. She put some kind of spell on me to control me.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Eleni nodded.

“We can arrange to have someone else sent out to you, when we go back,” Icarus offered.

“Also,” Mayes warned, “Don’t confront her about it.”

“No.”

“She’s not to be trusted,” Pandora agreed.

Eleni swallowed. “Understood. Did you get any further searching for the missing people?”

“We have a location,” Icarus replied. “We can go there in the morning.”

“Good… Chins up.”

“Of course. Stay safe.”

She gave a small smile. “I’ll always be safe in the House of Pelor.”

“I have it in good faith that Pelor had nothing to do with the people who have gone missing.”

“As I thought. May his light guide you.”

“And also you,” Icarus replied.

As the other two turned to leave, Mayes lingered at the back, tentatively approaching the woman. “Um, can you do, like… blessings? Or something?”

Eleni raised a brow.

“Can you just… bless me?”

“What sort of blessing?”

“Just something for like… personal comfort’s sake.”

She beckoned them. “Come here.”

Mayes leaned at the altar, and she tapped their head and shoulders with some of the water from the top before giving them a small charm that looked like a sheath of wheat.

“...Thanks,” Mayes nodded, tucking it in their bag.

“Don’t thank me, thank Pelor.”

Mayes looked up, and gave a little salute to the ceiling before catching up with the others outside.

“I didn’t know what she was doing, you know?” Icarus was confessing. “She just was sat in there when I walked in, and suddenly I was… it sucked.”

“I’m glad you’re okay though,” Pandora offered.

“Yeah, me too.”

“Mayes?”

“Yes,” Mayes appeared.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

Icarus led them forwards. “Let’s go get some honey.”

They retrieved their horses from where they were drinking water by the hitching post. Icarus gave his horse an excited pet before they saddled up again to head back up the hill, along the winding path. The sun was just starting to dip down.

As they looked back towards the town, it seemed as if they were setting up some kind of night market, putting out stalls with the catch of the day. There was a bit of music starting, and it seemed a bit more lively than it had been in their time down there during the day. They caught the last rays of sun going down over the ocean as they reached the top, back up to Villa Mykons, the honey farm at the top of the hill.

Katina saw them coming with the horses and came outside, her apron half folded down as she brushed flour off her hands. “Oh, you came back!”

“Of course,” Pandora smiled. “Where else would we go?”

“Your offer was so kind, we couldn’t turn it down,” Mayes reasoned.

“No.”

“Wonderful,” the woman smiled. “We’ve had the beds made up for you.”

“Thank you so much!” Pandora beamed.

“Thank you,” Icarus grinned.

“Are you hungry, thirsty?” Katina offered. “Can we get you anything?”

“Starving,” Pandora replied.

“Dinner would be great,” Mayes agreed.

“Yeah, that would be really nice,” Icarus followed.

Katina smiled. “I thought it might be. It’s already almost cooked.”

“Perfect,” Pandora smiled back.

“Take a seat again, and we’ll bring food out.”

They did, and Icarus wandered with the others over to the shop, a small building attached to the main farm. It was a small room, a 10 foot by 10 foot space with a counter and five feet of space behind that. There were a few short rows of shelves with jars of honey, bags of honey cashews, wax, soaps, hair and skin balms, honeycomb treats, small cheesecloth bundles with pasteli, and some small vials of liquid and dust on the counter in a careful display. Andreas, the old man, was behind it.

“What are these?” Pandora asked, pointing to the display.

“These are for medicinal uses,” Andreas explained. “These are honeybee venom…”

“Venom?” Icarus blinked.

“I did not know they were venomous,” Pandora admitted.

“And these are pollen beads,” Andreas continued.

“What do they do exactly?”

“Pollen beads fortify you for the day, and the venom acts as like an antipoison.”

“How much?”

“10 gold pieces a vial.”

The three of them counted up their coins. “Do we want to get one of each?” Mayes whispered to the others.

“I mean, it would be very good,” Icarus deliberated.

“It would be very good.”

“But I kind of want honey…. How much for the honey?” he turned to Andreas.

“We have free honey,” Mayes reminded him.

“We do have free honey,” Icarus admitted, “But I want… I want to take some back…”

“Oh, the jar of honey?” Andreas clarified. “There’s dozens of different kinds, but it’s a silver piece a pot.”

“I’ll take one.”

“Please, go ahead.”

“I’ll take the pollen vial, please,” Mayes decided.

“I’ll take the venom one,” Icarus followed.

“Okay,” Andreas nodded. “That’s 20 gold and a silver, unless there’s anything else you want?”

“I can’t afford anything else,” Icarus admitted.

“I’ll take some of the soap?” Pandora asked.

“Of course,” Andreas smiled. He passed over a bar of the honey wax soap for a silver piece, and threw in a sample of the hair and skin balm.

“Oh! Thank you!” She put a bit on her hands. “That smells so good, oh my Gods.” She turned excitedly to Icarus. “Smell my hands!”

Icarus did.

She turned to Mayes. “Smell my hands!”

Mayes did, and laughed.

“That smells so good,” Icarus grinned.

The balm made her hands feel very soft and supple, and of course, they smelled like honey. Icarus tried to put some on, but it only smeared over his waterproof skin. “Well,” he shrugged.

“Can you put it in your hair?” Pandora suggested.

“Yeah, that’s true!” He rubbed his fingers through his hair. “Don’t know what I expected on my hands.”

As Andreas went into the back room to get something, they could see a little sign on the wall behind the counter. It read,  _ All proceeds from the shop go to the Temple. _

The trio messed about in the gift shop for a bit, giggling at the touristy items, with shirts and pencils that read  _ I went to Villa Mykonos _ .

They returned to the small terrace with the mosaic floor to eat. Someone had strung out some lanterns from the house to the tree to light the tables. All of the staff still on site had gathered around to eat for the evening. Katina came out from the kitchen to serve a dinner of stuffed courgettes, spanakopita, moussaka, and jugs of ouzo and sweet wine. The feast was laid out across the table. It was a simple meal, but there was plenty of it.

Mayes was sure to take a glass of wine to forget about the troubles of the day.

They enjoyed the rest of the evening together. A few of the workers brought out instruments from their carts, and it became quite lively, with a few plates smashed in the bustle. There was a bit of dancing, and the three of them danced around with a few surprisingly buff farmhands and tiny little Katina, who was still quite spry in her age. Icarus spun with her, and though she was quite short, she was very bouncy, and took his hands to spin them together. She brought out honeyed cashews and honeycomb treats after dinner, and everyone dug in.

They were shown to a small guest room with three simple cot beds, and a nice open shuttered window for the sea breeze to roll in at night.

The three of them laid down to rest.

Icarus looked at the ceiling. “Do you think we should have done something more about Avra? It’s been on my mind all afternoon.”

“I feel like it won’t be the last time that we see her,” Pandora replied.

“I feel like if we tried anything, she would have just disappeared anyway,” Mayes reasoned.

“Maybe,” Icarus frowned. “I just hope it doesn’t come back to… not bite  _ us, _ but hurt the temple, or the people in the town. Because we left her be, you know?”

“Well I mean, by her own admission, she wasn’t the cause of the people going missing, exactly,” Pandora replied.

“No, but still. I don’t think she’s exactly safe.”

“No. I feel like there’s more to all this.”

“I agree,” Mayes followed. “It runs deeper. Further.”

“What time do we want to go down to the Cove tomorrow?”

“If the tide runs late,” Icarus considered, “Which means that it gets in at 2:00am, it’s not going to be out  _ early _ early.”

“It’s going to take us a while to get there,” Mayes realized. “You usually wake up at five, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I usually wake up at six. So… If we wake up around that time, and we just start going… by the time we get there we should be fine.”

“Yeah.” Icarus turned to Pandora. “You okay to be up early?”

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“...Can we talk about the fact that Emmanuael said to all three of us,  _ oh, the water comes in, duh, beware, the water, _ like, come on,” Icarus chuckled.  _ “Oh no, the water is gonna get me? _ Dude…”

Pandora laughed.

“He’s just a normal guy,” Mayes grinned.

“I know,” Icarus rolled his eyes. “Do I look like I cannot handle being in water?”

“I don’t know,” Mayes grinned, propping themselves up on one elbow as they laid in the cot. “Taking a look at you, I’m not sure about that.”

“Can you even swim?” Pandora accused. “You sure? I don’t know about that…”

Icarus was cracking up. “No, I’ve never swam in my life.” He pointed to the fins on his arms, “These are for flying.”

“Oh okay, cool, I did wonder…”

Icarus pointed to the fins on his ears, wiggling them a bit.

“I always thought you were a bird person,” Mayes chuckled. “Secret aarakocra.”

“Yeah, cursed.”

“Cursed aarakocra! Wow…”

“You did it, you worked it out,” Icarus grinned.

“Your tragic backstory…”

Icarus laughed.

“You’ve cracked it,” Pandora smiled.

“I’m good at cracking codes,” Mayes replied.

“That’s the one,” Icarus settled into his cot. “Citra will be proud.”

“Yeah, she will. Alright, you should get some rest. After… yeah.”

“Yeah, I’m feeling rough.”

“We should get some sleep,” Pandora agreed.

It was nice and cool inside the room, the moonlight seeping in through the shuttered window, the gentle smell of the sea rolling in on the breeze. As they fell asleep, they heard some very faint, distant singing from the town. A single, female tone.

But, they drifted off nonetheless, and slept through the night.

  
  


Pandora had one flash of dream in her head when she awoke. As the dream slid away from her, she could still recall one picture. Deep, thick, walls of ice. Miles and miles of clear ice. Somewhere, deep in the middle of it, a dark shape. And the sound of a screaming voice. When she woke with a start, that was all she had in her head.

Mayes stretched out, looking over. “Morning, gang.”

Icarus opened the door, returning from his jog to enter the room. “Morning!”

Pandora groaned, pulling the blanket over her head.

“Hey, we said,  _ would you be good to get up at this time?” _ Mayes teased.

“Give me a minute!” Pandora complained.

Mayes grinned over at Icarus before getting up to get dressed, with Pandora following a minute later. While Mayes went to shower under a fixed pipe that sprayed out cold water, Icarus made use of a large copper tub in a bathhouse area, sweaty from the run around the beehives and the orchard.

It had been truly beautiful outside on the dusty ground, his feet kicking up the dust to catch the glint of the morning light, where there were already farmhands working on the trees. One opened a beehive, and a swarm of bees came out. They reached in and pulled out a large square dripping with honey.

Icarus had waved and called out in greeting as he had passed, his hair back in a little bun. The farmhands had seemed a bit shocked to see him, but waved back.

Once they were ready, there was a breakfast of sweet pastries for them, along with some leftovers from the night before. Katina got up early to make sure they were well fed before returning to bed, serving them in her nightgown. Icarus gave her a hug in thanks, and she returned with an incredibly soft embrace.

“Thank you for having us in your home,” he smiled.

Katina smiled back. “Of course, of course. Hopefully I’ll see you again?”

“Yeah, we’ll definitely pop in on our way back.”

“The three of you can come here anytime.”

“We will!”

“Thank you so much,” Pandora followed. “We want to come here, not on a job. To actually enjoy Ithia.”

“We would love that,” Katina beamed. “We would love to see you, anytime.”

“Thank you. We'll be back, for sure.”

She waved to them down the path as they got back on their horses and plodded on.

  
  


Icarus led them down the path. “So, how did everyone sleep last night?”

“Yeah, great,” Mayes replied.

Pandora didn’t answer immediately. “...Yeah, fine.”

“Beds weren't quite as comfy as the Academy, but,” Icarus nodded.

“Better than camping on the ground,” Mayes countered.

“Yeah, definitely.”

“So, what do we think we’re gonna find at this cove? People, hopefully...”

“Hopefully people,” Pandora agreed.

“Did anyone hear singing last night?” Icarus asked.

“Yeah,” the other two frowned.

“It didn’t sound like just the townsfolk, right?”

“Nope,” Mayes agreed.

“It was just like, one person,” Pandora recalled.

“Right,” Icarus sighed. “Avra, please don’t be you. I don’t want to have to deal with that right now.”

“She laughed at the idea that it was sirens,” Mayes shrugged, “So…”

“Who knows.”

“Who knows.”

They rode on through the morning, and the sun was almost completely up in the sky by the time they reached it, two miles north. In a flash of orange and pink across the sky, they found themselves approaching a segment of dark rock, jutting out into the ocean. It was almost like another cliff face, on the ocean side. They rode down alongside it for quite awhile, but found no way to access the beach.

They spent about forty minutes looking, with Icarus distracted and angry at himself for being charmed the day before, and the others distrustful of the information they had been given. Eventually, using the paper they had been given, they found the same wet symbol on the paper carved into a dark rock, with an arrow. Following the arrow, they found a small path carved into the rock that opened out the other side. Through it, a beach.

Golden sand sloped into glistening blue waters stretching all the way out to the horizon, apart from one dark rock in the ocean. The sun just caught on the peaks of small waves. They were able to ride their horses single file through the gap, and found themselves on a massive stretch of beach, completely hidden by the dark rock.

Icarus took it all in. “This is beautiful, right?”

“Yeah, this is really nice,” Pandora agreed.

They dismounted, and lashed the horses onto a driftwood tree trunk nearby.

“So, we’re trying to find an underwater cave?” Mayes guessed.

“Well, Emmanuel said it was a rock that was sort of pointing out of the water,” Pandora replied. “And there was a cave there.”

“Might be that thing out there,” Icarus pointed. “Right? Should we go to it?”

“Seems like it,” Mayes nodded. “I mean, we might as well just have a look around first.”

“Sure.”

The three of them glanced around, but didn’t find much, save for a few pieces of driftwood that might have belonged to a boat at some point, along with a scattering of shells, seaweed, and rocks. There were footprints on the ground, but they seemed to be from plenty of various people walking around, with nothing that suggested anything out of place. They had about an hour before the tide came all the way in, and the tideline suggested the water would reach almost as far back as where they had left the horses.

“I guess we should go have a look at that rock, then,” Mayes decided. The rock was about a thirty foot swim away. They looked to Icarus. “Do you want to go first?”

“Sure, I can go scope it out, and let you guys know.”

“I mean, you need to prove to us that you can actually swim,” Mayes grinned.

“Oh, that’s true,” Icarus chuckled. “I should fly.”

“Yeah, you should fly. Go on, bird boy.”

“Yeah, you could fly. Come on,” Pandora teased.

Icarus rolled his eyes and walked into the water. It was quite a rapid decline into the water, the first few steps just lapping at his ankles before it rose quickly to his waist. A few steps further, he was swimming.

Swimming over to it, he saw what looked like an old, wrecked fishing boat in the water. Caught on the rock, it looked very old, covered in seaweed and stuck on the rock with an old fishing net. The waterwall had seaweed growing all over it. Icarus climbed onto the rock, pulling himself up.

Mayes took a running start to jump into the water and swam after him.

By the rock, Icarus found a sandal caught floating in a little rock pool. As he walked further, he swore he saw something fleshy.

As Mayes swam over, they saw Icarus standing on top of the rock, crouching down to look at something with a sandal in one hand.

It was a bloated, swollen arm. Severed from the elbow, it appeared to have been submerged in water for quite awhile.

Mayes pulled themselves up onto the rock. “You good buddy?”

Icarus gestured to the water. “There’s an arm.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Mmm.”

“No.”

“Ew.”

“It’s all swollen,” Icarus grimaced. “It’s been here for awhile.”

Mayes sighed.

Behind them, Pandora pulled herself up onto the rock. She cringed as she looked over at the arm. “Oh no, really?”

“It looks like it was either torn off somebody,” Icarus speculated, “Or chewed off them.”

“So, something strong, or something with big teeth,” Mayes concluded.

“That’s gross,” Pandora declared.

“That’s real gross,” Icarus seconded.

Mayes frowned again. “Great.”

“I found a sandal as well. That’s not quite as exciting, but. Gross.”

Mayes glanced at the sandal. “Cool.”

The three of them clambered over the rock, and found a few more fleshy pieces, along with the wet rags of what used to be someone’s tunic, with more caught on the further side of the rock across from the beach. There was nasty seaweed growing everywhere.

Icarus pointed out the shipwrecked boat to the others.

“Seems like these are some of the fishermen that went up this way,” Mayes guessed.

“Yeah,” Icarus frowned.

“Not necessarily,” Pandora countered. “The fishing boat looks like it’s been here for ages, and the fisherman have only been missing for a few weeks.”

“There is a cave under here, right?”

“That’s what Emmanuel said.”

“Then we should look for it,” Mayes decided.

“I hope we don’t find the thing that ate the arm.”

“Well, if we do, we deal with it,” Icarus assured her.

“Exactly,” Mayes nodded.

They heard a small splash in the water behind them, on the other side of the rock. They turned around, scurrying over to the other side of the little island.

Floating there was a woman’s body, facedown in the water and wearing a green tunic, black hair waving about. She didn’t seem decayed at all.

Icarus jumped in.

“Icarus, be careful!” Pandora called.

Icarus braced and dove forwards into the water. As he did, a bunch of seaweed under the surface went to wrap around his limbs. He managed to pull his limbs free as the seaweed attached to the rock came away, reshaping in the form of what looked like a horse. The woman’s body dove down as well, and suddenly there were two of them in equine shapes, disappearing around the back of the rock.

Mayes blinked. “Well, what the hell?”

“Are you okay?” Pandora called.

“Yeah,” Icarus reported. “Seaweed bad.”

“Get out! Get out of the water!”

“The seaweed turned into… horses?”

Pandora took the silk rope from her bag and threw it for Icarus. “Get out of the water!”

“We need to go down here.”

“Just wait until it’s safe, first!”

“I don’t think it will be, look at the seaweed all over this place. I feel like, potentially, that boat isn’t as old as we think it is, if the seaweed can move. We need to go down there.”

Pandora was unconvinced, but she relented. “...Fine!”

Icarus felt something slide against his ankle under the water. He dipped his head down, and found himself face to face with one of the creatures. “Hey!”

As the creature stared at him, he felt something flash into his mind. The same sensation that Avra had cast over him the day before pressed into him, but this time he was able to force his way out of it. “No! I’m not playing your games.”

He heard a strange underwater whinnying, and the creature slammed its body into him.

From the rock, Mayes saw a stream of water as Icarus was knocked back into the rock. Stepping forwards, they saw the shape of Icarus, with the shadow of a six foot long body beside him. Getting out their crossbow, they took a shot that pierced straight through it. It blasted off some seaweed that detached to float in the water, but it didn’t seem to do as much damage as they had hoped. “These things are hardy!” they warned.

In the water, another kelpie swam up to Icarus. As he struggled away in the water, both of the kelpies attacked. Icarus dodged for as long as he could, but one finally caught him in the side with its head.

The others saw a flash of Icarus’s usual lightning attacks from under the surface. The electricity crackled out from under the surface, striking everything around it as it charged through the water, including the triton boy himself.

“Icarus?” Mayes called.

Pandora yelled for him. “Icarus!”

In the flash of light, they could see the seaweed strands wrapping around Icarus’s body. Pandora swung her pendulum, and it started to glow blueish white as she sent out an attack. As the icy ray hit its target, a third kelpie emerged from beneath the surface to their left, crawling up onto the rock as a fourth surfaced by Icarus.

The three surrounding him attacked. Icarus tried to dodge what he could, but the seaweed had him grappled by the chest and tied around his legs, and the kelpies were relentless.

Icarus was absolutely terrified. With all of his limbs completely restrained, he was desperate to break free. He let out another spell, and thunder boomed outwards, shaking the rock the others were standing on. The kelpies were shaken off from the massive explosion, retracting the seaweed binds from his limbs as Icarus screamed in pain from the blow of his own magic. He flattened himself against the rock, hiding away from the kelpies just a few feet under the surface of the water.

Mayes glanced at the kelpie on the rock, but decided to help Icarus instead. Another crossbow bolt struck the kelpie in the hindquarters, causing a few more strands of seaweed to float off it as Mayes eyed their next target.

Another kelpie started to climb up the rock, slamming into Pandora. Though the creatures were slower on land, with their hindquarters shaped into more of a fish tail than equine legs, they could still attack.

Icarus, so desperate to stay away from the creatures, lashed out to knock away the ropes of seaweed from the other two that were still trying to catch him. “Not again, not again!”

Pandora specialized in fire magic, but any of those spells wouldn’t work in the water. Still ignoring the two on the rock, she sent out another spell to help Icarus, and a sickly green bolt flew from her pendulum to knock into one of the kelpies in the water. There was a flash of arcane light as the kelpie was poisoned, its movements slowing.

The other kelpie on the rock jumped at Mayes. They were able to dodge the first blow, but the kelpie struck into them on its second try. Seaweed shot out from the horse’s mane, wrapping around their legs.

“Gross!”

Another kelpie slammed into Icarus, and he lost consciousness. As his body started to float upwards, strands of seaweed grappled him once more. Looking over the rock, Pandora and Mayes could see the dark shape of the kelpie starting to drag his body thirty feet down into the depths.

Mayes tore the seaweed off their legs and dashed for the edge of the rock, dodging another kelpie before jumping off the edge to dive straight down after his ally. Mayes wrapped an arm around him, and unsure what to do, pressed the remaining air in their lungs into Icarus. Though Icarus could breathe water just fine, the burst of oxygen was enough of a surprise to his system that he blinked awake to see Mayes’ mouth on his.

Very dazed, Icarus gave a small, teasing grin. “I never knew you felt that way…”

Mayes gave him a pointed look that meant  _ not now. _

On the rock, another kelpie slammed into Pandora, grappling her while another bludgeoned Mayes, sliding more seaweed around them. Pandora struggled in the binds, and grabbed at the seaweed. With a necrotic spell, she began to transfer the creature’s life energy into her own body. The seaweed withered and decayed under her hand, rotting away to absolute nothingness.

She turned around to the other kelpie on the rock, crawling towards her. “That’s right, come get me, ignore them!”

The creature dragged seaweed hooves towards her, leaving a slimy trail across the rock. She dodged the first blow before it hit her with the second, grappling her yet again.

Below the waves, Icarus dodged another pair of blows before grabbing Mayes. Sending out a new spell, the pair was skyrocketed upwards, shooting almost ten feet into the air before landing on the surface, the water like solid ground beneath them. Bizarrely, the two kelpies came with them, each still holding on to their ankles. This was one of the weirdest things Mayes had ever experienced, but Icarus didn’t seem to find it strange at all. Beneath their feet, the weather rippled where they touched it, but it behaved like solid ground.

Icarus grabbed for a potion in his bag, quickly downing it. He was breathing heavily, and looking very rough.

Mayes blinked at the water beneath them, the kelpie lurking just below as it coiled seaweed tendrils around their legs. “That’s a neat trick.”

“Yeah. Should have done it sooner.”

“It’s okay, we’ve got this.”

There was now one withering and dead kelpie on the rock, nothing more than a pile of dried and decayed seaweed in the sun, while another was beating down on Pandora.

Mayes pulled out their dual swords and stabbed down into the water at the kelpie below. The kelpie retaliated by slamming upwards, knocking into Mayes from below as they half dodged. The kelpie tried to drag them down, but Mayes’ feet refused to sink any further.

Pandora slapped at the seaweed binds, but was unable to free herself. “Get off! You’re so gross!”

“Come on, Pandora!” Mayes called.

“I’m trying! It’s so slippery!”

Frustrated, the kelpie under the water turned up to glare at Mayes. They felt the same sensation Icarus had managed to ward off before wash over them. Lowering their swords, all they could do was stare back, completely stunned. Satisfied, the kelpie turned to pull them down again, but Mayes still would not move.

Pandora tried to batter off her own kelpie only to have it knock her completely down onto the rocks, and the tiefling collapsed as she fell unconscious. Dodging another pair of attacks, Icarus lifted his holy symbol up towards Pandora, sending forth just enough healing magic to wake her. Drawing Lorakai’s sword, he tried to strike at the kelpie below him, but the angle was almost impossible.

As Pandora’s eyes fluttered open, she rolled immediately to dodge the relentless creature bearing down on her.

Mayes was still staring at the creature below them in a daze. Unable to defend themselves, the kelpie rammed upwards into them.

Pandora ripped the seaweed binds from her body and sent out a final spell. The kelpie withered, rotting instantly as it smeared across the dark rock. Pulling herself to her feet, she downed a potion to steady herself.

The kelpie holding Icarus slammed against him twice more, and he went down. As he fell to the water, he felt a short spike of electricity zap into his body, forcing his eyes open.

He was staring at the clouds.

Kicking the seaweed off his feet, he scrambled back up. “Not today.”

He swiped at the kelpie on Mayes. Though the physical sword missed, his identical spiritual weapon swung past to slice through it. As it was hit, Mayes suddenly came back to themselves, kicking off the seaweed binds. “Ugh!”

The kelpie’s head came out of the water, looking up at Mayes before it dove down into the depths, Icarus slashing at it on the way. As it fled, Pandora shot out another spell. The streak of magic soared through the water, lighting up the sea around it, but the creature just managed to dodge.

The other kelpie tried and failed to slam into Icarus again. Agitated, it lifted its head above the waves to stare into Icarus, catching him dead in the eyes. The other students watched as Icarus was pulled into the same daze.

Mayes swung out against the creature, forcing it to drop its hold on Icarus as they slashed it through. The kelpie that swam down was nowhere to be seen.

Pandora shot out another spell, this time making contact. The kelpie, feeling a bit outnumbered, tried and failed to attack Mayes again. Icarus shoved his sword straight up into the creature, splitting it through the center.

The kelpie fell apart into pieces, the seaweed littering the surface of the water.

Icarus let out a deep sigh.

“Good job buddy,” Mayes panted.

Pandora held out a hand. “Come on! Get up!”

Icarus grabbed the hand and climbed back up while Mayes paced the water, keeping their eyes down to look for the remaining creature.

“You okay?” Pandora worried.

Icarus pulled himself onto the rock. “I feel very rough.”

“Take a sit down.”

Icarus swallowed, and then began to walk around the rock, searching for the remaining kelpie. Staring down into the water, he could swear he saw a dark shape moving, and two eyes. Leaning a little closer, he realized there were two eyes. The face of another bloated corpse stared back up at him, caught on something just under the surface. Half of the face was chewed.

Underneath, the kelpie darted through.

“What do you see?” Pandora asked.

Icarus climbed down to stand on the water, reaching down to pull up the body. The shape of the kelpie came straight for him.

It erupted through the surface of the water, slamming straight into his chest.

Icarus tumbled down, knocked unconscious for the third time this fight as his body hit the surface of the water.

Pandora swung her pendulum once more. A sickly green ray struck into it as she screamed. “Get away from him!”

The kelpie crumpled in on itself, poisoned, diseased, and rotting. The mass of seaweed sank down into the water as Pandora ran forwards to pull Icarus back up and onto the rock.

Mayes hurried over, crouching down by Icarus to stabilize him.

Pandora hovered over them. “You okay?”

Icarus took a few shaky breaths. “I need a break.”

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed.

“I feel like garbage.”

“Okay, just sit there a minute,” Pandora advised.

“Can someone get that body?”

“Yeah.”

Where the creatures had slammed into them all, welts and bruises were beginning to form. Icarus took ten minutes to himself, focusing on the symbol of Kord as his healing magic was pushed out to all three of them.

Mayes pulled the rough, bloated, half eaten corpse up onto the little island with them.

They sat for a full hour, exhausted on the rock, thirty feet out from the shore. They watched as the tide line rose all the way up, nearly at their horses. The animals seemed fine, though they had been a bit distressed during the fighting.

“If you go back in the water, you’ll just go through it now,” Icarus warned.

Mayes nodded. “Okay.”

“It doesn’t last that long.”

“That’s fine, we need to swim to get to the cave anyway.”

“Yeah, I was gonna… Give me a second.”

Icarus moved over to investigate the body. There was nothing particular on the body, but after examining it for a while, he was able to identify the corpse from the descriptions they had been given.

Aris, the farmer.

“I think it’s Aris,” Icarus frowned.

“Oh no,” Pandora sighed.

Mayes glanced over. “Oh…”

Icarus took out his holy symbol once more, and pressed it to his forehead. Putting a hand on Aris’s shoulder, he sent out one more spell.

The corpse very slowly moved its head. Swollen eyes looked up at him in distress.

“We can only ask it- ask  _ him _ \- a handful of questions,” Icarus explained.

“Okay,” Pandora nodded.

“Maybe how he got here?” Mayes suggested. “Who or what did this to him?”

Icarus addressed the corpse. “How did you get here?”

Aris took a ragged breath. “There was… a woman in green… she led me here…”

“If there’s anyone else, where are they?”

“Down…. To the cave… They took me down to the cave…”

“Must be the cave under the rock,” Mayes murmured.

Icarus glanced over. “Yeah, makes sense.”

“So… many…” Aris continued.

“Ask if there’s anything else dangerous down there,” Mayes prompted.

“Sure,” Icarus nodded. “Uh, is there anything else down there?”

“Gold,” Aris replied. “Young.”

“Young?” Pandora echoed.

Icarus shook his head. “I don’t like that… What did the woman in green do or say, to get you here?”

Aris sighed, smiling a bit. “Sang… beautiful song…”

Icarus looked to the others. “Last night.”

Aris started to hum a bit, swaying his head back and forth as he smiled to himself. It was extremely unsettling.

“Aris?”

The corpse’s eyes focused a bit, its head dropping off to the side.

“...Is there anything you want us to pass on to people for you?”

Aris blinked. “...Tell… Moriea… I never meant to…” he sputtered slightly, as though choking on his words. “That is… wasn’t worth it…”

He exhaled, but there was no breath to it. It was as if they were watching his final breath once more.

The body stopped moving.

Icarus closed the man’s eyes, and placed the symbol of Kord against his lips before tapping it to the man’s forehead, whispering a small prayer for him.

Icarus sighed. “We’ve got to put an end to this.”

Pandora gave the triton a hug. He hugged back.

“You did really well,” Pandora offered.

“Thank you. I’ve never actually done that before, so.”

“Wouldn’t have known it was the first time you did it.”

Mayes bumped Icarus’s arm with their own. “Look at you, coming in with all the useful spells.”

Icarus gave a small chuckle. “Well, I’m feeling a bit worn out now, but… Let’s see what we can do.”

“There’s more,” Pandora nodded. “In the cave, under the rock.”

“Yeah,” Mayes sighed. “Time for a bit of diving, it seems.”

“Mhm.”

“Shame it’s not smiling,” Icarus smiled softly.

“Oh, shame it’s not flying, huh,” Mayes smiled back. “I don’t know, you do pretty well in the water.”

“You did kind of fly up out of the water,” Pandora recalled.

“We did! We did.”

“You’re a flying fish.”

Icarus laughed, and then sighed.

Mayes watched him carefully. “Okay. You think you’re ready?”

He rubbed his face, and then nodded. “Always.”

Mayes put out a hand. “Go team?”

Icarus added his own. “Go team.”

“Go team,” Pandora smiled, finishing the stack.

They lifted their hands away. “Dream team,” Icarus grinned.

Mayes chuckled. “Sure.”

The three of them jumped into the water, and swam. Icarus showed off a bit as he dove, and they kicked their feet to move down. It wasn’t long before they could see the opening of a cave underneath the water in the rock. They kept swimming, ducking into the cave.

It was dark down there, but Pandora could see that the cave continued forward into the rock. Eventually, they saw a surface inside the cave.

Pulling their heads up, they breached through to breathe air. They saw piles and piles of gold around them, and plenty of dead flesh. Growing from the flesh were long strings of seaweed.

A few of them started to move.

  
  



	9. Light in the Dark, Episode Nine

Reams of seaweed were growing out of the corpses of what must have been the townsfolk. The dark cavern was only about thirty feet across in every direction, and looking up, the ceiling of the cavern above was probably as high as the surface of the water, filling the porous space below the crest of rock they had been standing on. The seaweed shapes were shifting and writhing on top of the half eaten bodies of the missing people. The seaweed didn’t form into any kind of creature, but they did move a bit to feel out towards the sound of movement in the water.

In the darkness, Pandora was the only one who could see. “I think I found the other missing people…”

“Can you make fire on one of the torches?” Icarus suggested.

Glancing around the room, Pandora saw several sconces on the walls, but there was only one that still had a torch. She helped the others up onto the stone plateau, and went over to the sconce. Holding a hand over it, the torch was dripping wet, but as she sent out her spell, it ignited instantly. Dim light was thrown over everything in the cavern.

“That’s better,” Icarus approved.

“Thanks,” Mayes followed.

There were heaps of gold in the cavern, as well as the bodies of at least eight or nine people in various states of decay and water rot, with chunks of them eaten off. The cave seemed to be some sort of treasure horde, a hideout. On top of the piles of gold, there were broken bottles, jars, and ceramic items, as well as a small crate with several more unbroken items inside. There were other crates of various ill-gotten goods ranging from bottles of alcohol with corks still in the tops to very damp and destroyed bolts of textiles.

Icarus frowned in thought. Pirates weren’t entirely uncommon around Erran, but they hadn’t heard anything specific about pirates in this area.

They found a few very old, very damp parchment scraps, and an inkpot. They were just able to make out through the waterlogged ink at the top vague directions and suggestions that whoever the paper was to be given to should come to that location for a rewarding opportunity. There was a stack of them, multiple pages written out and never sent, likely meant to have been handed out somehow. There were also items that would be good for settlers or explorers, with now sadly rotten or sundried shovels and simple clothing, all packed in waterlogged crates that had been shoved in at the back. There were a couple of old, large tapestries, one so destroyed by saltwater that they couldn’t make out what was on it, the other depicting a rather vigorous forest scene with satyrs and nymphs, graffitied on quite nastily with an ink pen.

There was a small trunk, crusted closed with salt, as well as a good quality pan flute, and in the center, a small fire pit that was as damp as everything else in the page. It seemed that perhaps someone had sat inside, protecting the area.

As they moved around, they noticed that the seaweed strips coming off the bodies would writhe along the floor and try to touch them, but they were easy to step over and very slow. The more they explored, the more the scent of death started to permeate all of their senses. There were no survivors, not even a body in one piece.

Bucking themselves and bracing for it, they investigated the remains, counting up almost as many bodies as they were told were missing, perhaps even one or two more. They didn’t find anyone who matched the description of Yanni, the other farmhand, but they did find a couple of bodies wearing clothing not local to Erran. Rather than the chitons and tunics they were used to, those bodies seemed to have belonged to passing by ships from elsewhere. Largely, everything was chewed and eaten, with a focus on eating the flesh and leaving the internal parts. The seaweed wriggled over them, but it wasn’t much of a threat. With their weapons, they started cutting at the strands.

“These could be the young,” Icarus guessed.

“Maybe,” Pandora frowned.

“I don’t feel like we should leave any of this… seaweed… alive.”

“Yeah, I guess, we'll do what we can to get rid of as much of it as we can find.”

“Let’s do that.”

They hacked their way around through the seaweed, spending almost a half an hour blasting at the remains with simple spells and blades. The plants shriveled into themselves until they were confident nothing was moving, though they had to move some body parts around to make sure of it.

There was nothing left in there but themselves, the corpses, and a whole lot of treasure.

“There’s a lot of gold here,” Pandora sighed.

“We should tell the town,” Icarus replied. “They deserve to have this.”

Mayes nodded. “Yeah. Some sort of compensation for all of this happening.”

“Exactly.”

Icarus stepped forwards, standing as best he could in the center of the bodies to read their last rites. He wanted to leave them in peace. Ordering the bodies slightly so they weren’t strewn about the place, he laid them out to close their eyes, giving them both Kord’s and Pelor’s blessing. He finished by covering them with the ruined, saltwater stained tapestry.

It seemed that they had entirely cleared out the nest of kelpies that had taken refuge there, although there was still all of the treasure around them. It didn’t feel like something the fisherman from the area would have, so they searched through it to find any clues of its origin.

There was a small traveling suitcase trunk, slightly rusty around the clamps where it had been damp. Clearly, there had been no dry way to transport anything into this cave. Inside the chest, there were five different high quality wigs, and a disguise kit. Around the fire pit were the remnants of clerical scrolls that had been torn up and put into the fire to use as kindling. There were broken tools, kegs of nails, and rusted metal objects, along with a leather backpack with some very moldy sad bread inside, and some personal possessions, including a bone handled comb, a hand axe, an ornate snuffbox, a mirror, a nasty salt stained wool cloak, and some silver pieces. Amongst the gold in the cave were red gems and small diamonds.

Pandora examined a waterlogged chest situated at the back, near the outside, looking swollen and sealed shut from the water. There was a hook on the front for a padlock, but there was none. It was simply pressurized by the salt and water, having sat here for possibly ten years. She grabbed a rock to dent it, and managed to dent the outside wall. Some of the crusted, salty rust around the outside started to break off. She kept going, bashing at the chest and smashing the rock against the outside. Eventually, it creaked a bit, and revealed a small gap. She pried it open with one of the items lying around.

Inside, perfectly sealed from the water and kept in perfect condition, were some very luxury travelling items. She found glassware, a very very fancy looking brass compass, and a spyglass. There was also what appeared to be a jeweler's scale, a mortar and pestle, and some fine clothing. All of the items looked as though they perhaps came off a ship on a voyage.

“Hm,” Pandora thought. “So this was from, presumably, not people around here. This is a lot... sort of more decadent.”

“Yeah, it seems that way,” Mayes agreed. “That this was someone’s secret hideout for treasure and stuff.”

“Mhm.”

“And they’d eventually come to collect it, but I guess…”

“Guess not.”

“Guess not.”

“These things moved in?” Icarus hypothesized.

“Well, the people have only been missing for- ”

“A few weeks.”

“Exactly.”

“And they’ve only just had their young.”

Mayes nodded. “So yeah, I guess this is a relatively new development.”

Pandora examined the seaweed remains. “So, maybe they were forced out of where they came from originally? The kelpies?”

“Potentially. Or just travelling.”

“Because it’s not as if this cove is full of people. Like, these people had to be lured here.”

“True…”

Icarus bent down, sifting through the remains of the clerical scrolls on the floor. There was basic clerical language, with the suggestion of worshipping Avandra, the God of safe sea travel. He relayed this to the others.

“That tracks,” Mayes nodded.

“But this is a town that worships Pelor,” Icarus considered. “And obviously those that go on the ocean would still worship Avandra and ask for safe passage, but… potentially these aren’t from here.”

“Well there’s more people here than were necessarily thought to be missing from the town,” Pandora reasoned. “So it could be other people from a passing ship, or…”

“Or it could be that people who’s trove this was were trying to come and collect,” Mayes countered. “In any case, we should probably get back, and…”

“Yeah…”

“Let people know that we don’t have anyone to return, but… No more people are going to go missing.”

Icarus looked over the bodies dejectedly. “It’s a small condolence.”

“Mm.”

The triton sat down, examining the compass and the spyglass from the fancy box. They were fine quality, and definitely not from this part of the continent. They were made of nice brass, with a few gold details on them. They definitely belonged to someone of high rank or upper class. He did find a couple of small runes on the compass. They were likely arcane, but he didn’t understand them.

Tentatively, he picked both items up. “I’m… gonna take both of these things. If that’s okay. The spyglass and the compass.”

“Yeah,” Pandora nodded.

“You can help me look at the compass a bit more, maybe?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

She took a look, but the runes were not from this side of the continent, and not at all what she was used to. She gestured to the spyglass instead. “Have you tried looking through it?”

He did. It was just a spyglass, and the compass was simply turning its needle like a normal compass would.

From across the room, Pandora noticed a point in the ceiling where the cave condensed, dripping water down to hit the torch on the wall. Strangely, it wasn’t steaming at all. Moving to take a closer look, she was able to find a few similarly foreign arcane runes down the side of the torch as well.

She picked it up. “So… just bear with me a minute,” she warned. “Like, it might get dark in here, but I’ll put the torch back on if it does.”

Icarus glanced over. “Okay.”

Pandora dunked the torch in the water. It did not go out. “Oh, this is cool!”

Icarus’s eyes widened. “Oh that’s very cool. That is very cool.”

“Yeah, that’s good. Should we… we can, we can take this, surely?”

“...Yeah!” the other two agreed.

“I think so,” Icarus nodded.

“Cool,” Pandora smiled. “See, it’s got like similar runes to the compass you have.”

He looked at the compass again. “So this has got to do something.”

“That’s cool,” Mayes approved.

“Okay. We should head back then. Tell the people that this is… all here.”

“With a well lit exit.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Pandora grinned.

“You know,” Icarus considered, “For someone that can be underwater a lot… sucks that I can’t see that far under there,” he chuckled.

“You should work on that,” Mayes advised. “Train your eyes.”

Pandora glanced at the other box, grinning a bit. “Do you want one of the wigs, Mayes?”

“No!” Mayes laughed. “I don’t want the wigs!”

Icarus shook his head. “Anyway…”

As he was about to leave, Pandora stopped him. Amongst the gold, diamonds were scattered everywhere. There were almost enough for a very, very important spell.

Icarus sighed as he realized her meaning. “The town kind of needs it, though…”

“But…” Mayes pressed, “We don’t want to die.”

“...Yeah…” He shook his head. “Okay, I’m having a moral dilemma…”

“Yes?”

“Diamonds are a really important spell component…”

“Okay…”

“For a really important spell…”

The compass in Icarus’s hand began to spin in circles.

Icarus blinked, and then raised it. “Hey… Compass? …Should I take the diamonds?”

It continued to spin.

Pandora leaned over. “Does it only do that when whoever is holding it is in a moral quandary?”

“Maybe?”

“Okay,” Mayes stepped forwards. “I’m gonna say, if it’s useful for a spell, then it’s taking something needed, not just something because we want it.”

“That could potentially save our lives, considering…”

“And other people’s lives,” Pandora added.

“And other people’s lives.”

Mayes held out a hand. “Now let me hold the compass.”

Icarus passed it over. The compass spun slowly, and then the needle settled on Mayes.

Pandora looked at the device. “What does that mean?”

Mayes stared at it, whispering. “I have no idea. But like…”

“Is it because you made a decision?” Icarus guessed.

“I have no idea,” they repeated.

Icarus took it back, looking at it excitedly. It began to spin again.

He passed it to Pandora. It kept spinning.

“Are you undecided?” Mayes asked.

“I...I think we should take them,” Pandora replied. “I agree with your logic.”

The compass needle spun, and landed on her.

Pandora scratched her head. “...So it only stops when you make a decision?”

“I guess,” Mayes replied.

Icarus pointed accusingly at the object. “You are not helpful.”

Pandora laughed. “It tells you what you already know.”

Mayes chuckled. “There’s perhaps something more to it, we just need to figure it out later.”

“Probably.”

“But yeah, if… if it’s something that can save our lives, or other people’s lives, especially considering the fight that we’ve just had…”

“Mhm,” Icarus nodded.

“...It’s not taking away something for the sake of taking it away, it’s a resource that’s helpful for us.”

Icarus hesitated a moment longer.

“Just take the diamonds,” Pandora pressed.

“Okay,” he relented. “We’re taking the diamonds. And the rubies, to sell for more.”

“And we’ll leave all of the gold, and everything else, for the town.”

“Yes, that’s for them.”

“That’s a lot of treasure,” Mayes whistled.

“That’s a lot of treasure,” Pandora echoed.

They spent a bit of time picking through the gold, sifting through to gather up the diamonds. They would still need a few more for the spell, but they figured they would be able to exchange the rubies to complete the emergency stash.

Satisfied, they walked back, hopping off the edge of the dry stone and back into the water. As Pandora and Mayes held their breath, the torch didn’t go out.

“That’s so cool, right?” Icarus grinned.

The other two nodded under the water.

As they swam along, they saw vague carvings along the tunnel walls, with the shapes of arrows and what might have been small holes for traps from the past, though nothing was operational now.

Icarus looked over at the carvings. “Can I borrow the torch, Pandora?”

She handed it over, and Icarus swam forwards to investigate. They seemed to be directions and signals for someone in the know to avoid the traps.

“Just a way to keep people out,” Icarus reported. “For people who know it’s there to know exactly where the traps are.”

Pandora swam past him, flashing a thumbs up as she swam forwards.

Icarus talked a bit longer before he turned around to realize the others were already gone, heading for air.

He blinked. “Oh yeah… Well.”

Pandora and Mayes popped up at the surface, Icarus following about twenty seconds after. It was bright daylight now, and they could see the tide was still all the way in on the beach. They splashed back over to find the horses.

As they did, Pandora and Icarus noticed another cave, mostly covered with seaweed and brush, on the left hand side of the rock face.

Icarus pointed over. “Let’s have a look in here.”

“Okay,” Pandora agreed.

Mayes turned around, completely oblivious to it. “What?”

“There’s a cave,” the other two chorused.

“Oh, okay.”

Icarus eyed the seaweed in annoyance as they approached. It was dark on the inside, but with the light of the torch, they realized immediately that something had dragged itself through the sand and inside, with smears of blood leading into the cave.

Carefully, they entered. Icarus drew his sword and shield. Venturing in a little further, they saw some more crates and chests that looked similar to the ones in the underwater cave, largely covered with sand. The drag marks continued past, and they travelled quite a ways further before they saw, unresponsive, another body. There was a large chunk of flesh missing on one of the legs.

Icarus rushed over, and was able to identify Yanni. He was unconscious, but vaguely breathing. Icarus sent out a healing spell, and Yanni took a larger breath, filling his lungs. There was a slight flicker to his eyes now, and he was stable, but he was still coming in and out of consciousness.

“Hey,” Icarus smiled comfortingly. He looked to the others with urgency. “Let’s get him back.”

“Yeah, he can go on one of our horses,” Mayes agreed.

“Yeah,” Icarus gently scooped him up.

Between the three of them, they were able to pick him up and carry him out. As they left, they found a few more diamonds, just enough to complete the set.

Yanni’s leg was almost gone, but they were able to lift him onto a horse. Using some scraps of fabric, they tied off the wound and tried their best to stop the bleeding. Yanni flopped forwards onto the horse’s neck, but he was breathing steadily now.

“Okay, let’s get back to the bee farm now,” Pandora urged.

“Yeah, quickly,” Icarus replied.

Mayes mounted their horse. “Some good news, at least.”

“Yeah.”

They made their way through the very slim passage on the rock, and back out into the main sandy track. Immediately, they took off back down the coastline. Looking up and noting from where the sun was in the sky, it was coming up on 9:00 or 10:00am as they made their way back.

After another 40 minutes of riding back, they moved straight through the town. People setting up the morning markets were now looking up in confusion at them, but they got out of the way to allow them to ride straight through and up the mountain path.

  
  


They made their way back to Villa Mykons, bringing Yanni back up to the farm. As the staff came out to see them, they quickly rushed to their side to help him down and carry him inside the building. Everyone was quite frantic, but there was someone on site who could tend to wounds and send off a message for help. The next hour was quite frantic until they found themselves sitting back inside the main room, at the small table with a pot of tea.

Andreas came in after a while looking quite shaken. “We can’t thank you enough.”

“No need to thank us,” Pandora replied. “We’re sorry, but um… None of the other missing people made it out. We were just so lucky to find Yanni.”

“What did you find?”

“Kelpies,” Icarus explained. “And a… treasure hoard. It looked like they potentially moved in recently, but there's gold down there, that can be given back to you and the community here. It’s no replacement for their lives, but…”

“Something to help rebuild,” Mayes nodded.

Andreas swallowed. “Thank you.”

“I gave them their last rites,” Icarus offered. “And hopefully, they are resting in peace. Uh, we have a message for Aris’s wife. From Aris.”

“We can pass it on.”

Icarus relayed the message, and Andreas was extremely grateful, and extremely somber. “The town of Ithia can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for us. Um, we did promise if you brought somebody back alive, there would be a… an extra…. on what we’d pay…”

“Icarus was already shaking his head. “I don’t think so.”

“No,” Pandora agreed. “You’ve done so much for us.”

“Yeah.”

Andreas bowed his head. “We’re extremely grateful for that. Thank you.”

“Just glad we could do something,” Icarus smiled softly.

“Is there anything else we can do for you? Will you stay another night?”

“We kind of need to get back, with the horses,” Mayes replied.

“Yeah,” Icarus sighed. “But, we will be back…”

They decided to warn him about the cleric as well. Andreas was a bit confused, but he listened, and he trusted them after what they had done.

The man nodded. “Well, if I can’t convince the three of you to stay another night, at least let us give you a parcel of food for the way.”

“Thank you,” Pandora smiled.

“That would be really appreciated,” Mayes followed.

Andreas left them again for a short while, and returned with Katina. She pressed her hands to her chest as she saw them, looking over them with slightly sad eyes. “I heard you were leaving?”

“Yeah, we’ve got to get back,” Pandora replied.

“We will miss you. Like I said before, you’re welcome anytime.”

“We’ll be back, we promise.”

“Yeah,” Icarus grinned.

“Under different circumstances,” Mayes agreed.

“Come stay for longer next time,” Katina invited. “Stay for a week. Enjoy Ithia.”

“We will,” Icarus smiled.

“That would be really nice,” Pandora followed, glancing at the others. “We’ll go to the beach, have a beach day.”

Mayes eyes lit for a moment. “Oh, yeah.”

Icarus smiled. “I’d love that.”

Katina turned. “Okay, we’ve got these for you…” In cheesecloth bundles, she had wrapped up honeycomb treats and honeyed cashews, along with cuts of meat, rices, and different ingredients to cook with.

“This is amazing,” Pandora beamed. “Thank you so much.”

“To keep you sustained on your journey back.”

“This is so much better than the rations we had on our way here.”

“Oh my Gods, yeah,” Mayes frowned at the memory.

“Yeah, right?” Icarus chuckled. “Thank you, honestly, this is more than… More than helpful.”

Katina smiled. “Just… stay safe.”

“And you.”

“Of course,” Mayes followed.

“We will,” Pandora agreed. “You too.”

“And if you need anything else,” Icarus offered, “Just let us know.”

Katina stood a bit straighter, smiling. “And if you need anything from  _ us, _ just let us know.”

Icarus grinned. “That is a deal.”

“And you’re not leaving without giving me a hug.”

“Of course we’re not.”

Katina held open her arms. Icarus and Pandora hurried over to return the hug as Mayes leaned over briefly for a small pat. Katina hugged Mayes back tightly anyways, bringing in the three students for a cozy embrace. Andreas followed with handshakes for them all.

The couple came outside with them as they left, and Andreas put his arm around Katina’s shoulder as they waved goodbye. They had stayed into the early afternoon now, and the trio made their way back along the top back, with Ithia down at the bottom of the cliff, and the sun glistening over the water. It was absolutely peaceful.

They took a minute to look down as they left.

“So beautiful,” Pandora sighed.

“So long Ithia,” Mayes nodded.

“We’ll be back.”

“Yeah,” the others chorused.

They made their way along, riding back south down the coastline towards Erran. As they rode, Pandora mulled over what Avra had said to her. Mayes did the opposite, avoiding similar thoughts.

Icarus fidgeted with his new compass. The needle pointed comfortably north backwards behind him. “Hm.”

“Hm?” Pandora prompted.

“It’s not really moving anymore. It’s just pointing north.”

“Like a compass is supposed to.”

“Yeah. So I guess it’s just when you have a... moral quandary.”

“Maybe someone at Delphos will be able to identify it.”

“Yeah, maybe we can ask Alexander?”

Pandora went a bit gooey eyed. “Yeah. He’ll know how to do that.”

“Yeah, we can do that.”

They continued riding for several hours, until it started to get dark. They watched the sun set once again, their horses trotting on. They could see the golden orange sun, and the colors of the sky as it set over the horizon. It was a sight they would never get tired of looking at.

They kept going into the early dust, and it started to get completely dark, too dark for Icarus and Mayes to see. With their new torch however, the glow shed light about twenty feet ahead of them out in the wilderness, illuminating plain open land in front.

As they rode along, Pandora was the first to notice the dim light of a fire somewhere ahead of them in the dark.

“There’s a campfire up ahead,” she pointed.

Icarus took out his spyglass, looking through. “It’s definitely a campfire.”

“Give it here,” Pandora chided as the other two laughed.

Taking a look, she could see a clearly lit and contained campfire in the crook of a small rockface, the fire blazing quite high. She could see some large dark shapes around it, covered by something, like big blocks, and maybe the shape of someone moving around.

“There’s tall dark shapes, kind of covered up, and maybe someone kind of moving around them?”

Mayes frowned. “That… doesn’t  _ sound _ friendly...”

“But at the same time, it might just be a traveller,” Icarus countered.

“True…”

“It might, but, do we really want to risk it?” Pandora warned.

Icarus shrugged. “We need to set up camp at some point. We’ll either stop here, go back, or keep moving past, so we’re probably going to have to find out either way.”

“I suppose…”

“Maybe if they’re friendly, we can share the camp,” Mayes suggested.

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed. “That would be ideal.”

“But let’s be on guard,” Pandora pressed. “In case they are not friendly.”

“Yeah.”

“Sure,” Mayes agreed.

“Eyes up.”

Just in case, Pandora let out a small protective spell, a sheen of red ice shimmering over her. They dismounted their horses.

“Should we creep closer first, and then come back to the horses?” Icarus suggested.

“Do you want me to stealth ahead?” Mayes offered.

“That would be good. Yeah, Mayes, do you want to go check- ?”

As Icarus turned, Mayes had already disappeared.

“Mayes?” Pandora called.

Icarus looked around. “Mayes...? Okay, I think they already are…”

Mayes crept closer to the camp silently, their feet not making a sound in the dirt beneath them. Using what little terrain there was, they masked their body shape so they couldn’t even be seen through the dark as a silhouette. Moving their way around, the rock wasn’t very high, only ten feet or so, but they moved around to it and used it to shield themselves as they looked closer. They saw two men, one with some elven heritage and the other likely human, wearing rough and patched together armour that looked Errani, but too ruined for them to be legionnaires. One was strolling around the camp as the other sat.

The large, blocky shapes that Pandora described were cages. They were large cages, mostly covered in rough sheets, but they could hear noises of something bestial moving around inside them. There was one uncovered that was completely empty, and huge, with enough room to fit a horse or more. One man paced as the other stoked the fire slightly, both with swords at their sides.

The two were quiet for a while, but it was an unsettling enough scene that Mayes lingered to wait, until one of them spoke.

“How much longer do you think they’re gonna be?”

The one at the fire rolled their eyes. “Sit down. I’m sure it’s not gonna be  _ that _ long. You’re gonna know when they’re coming anyway, that thing is gonna make some huge noise.”

The one pacing around looked further south down the path towards Erran. He looked rather bothered.

The other one was more dismissive. “Come sit down by the fire.”

Mayes tiptoed back to the others.

Icarus was in a hushed conversation with Pandora. “I mean, it’s just, Mayes was  _ right there _ \- ”

“Hey guys.”

The other two jumped as Mayes appeared once more.

“Okay, they’re back,” Icarus blinked.

Mayes cleared their throat. “So…”

“What did you see?” Pandora prompted.

“I think… I think we’ve got a case of… bandits? Or smugglers? Transporting creatures of some kind? There are huge cages covered in tarp.”

“Oh…”

“And they’re waiting for people coming from the way that we’re going, so…”

“Shoot,” Icarus grimaced.

“We should…”

“Try and avoid them?” Pandora suggested.

“Try and avoid them,” Mayes considered, “Or if they’re staying here for the night… We need rest.”

“Yeah,” Icarus sighed.

“We could jump them in the morning?”

“But what if they jump us first?” Pandora warned.

“Well, we’d just have someone on watch,” Icarus replied.

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “We’d just be quiet about it.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure I’m comfortable… If they’re waiting for someone coming up from that direction, they might be going to where we just came from…”

“They said that they would hear their friends coming because the thing in the cage will make a lot of noise.”

Icarus cringed. “Oh, I hate that.”

“What’s in the cage?” Pandora asked.

Mayes shrugged. “The one that I saw that was visible was big enough for like… a very large creature.”

Icarus frowned. “Okay, let’s just… try and find a hidden area.”

“Yeah, somewhere off the beaten path.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Pandora agreed.

From the distance, further down south from the trail, they heard the desperate, shrieking cries of an animal in pain.

Pandora jumped. “What’s that?”

Mayes listened closely. “Probably…”

They heard the sounds of swords clashing in the distance.

Icarus swallowed. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t leave this.”

“No,” Pandora agreed.

Mayes nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Icarus echoed.

They jumped on their horses, riding on towards the camp and taking a wide berth around it to keep themselves undetected. They rode past until they saw flashes of light from torches. Quickly dismounting, they lashed the horses up to a nearby tree, and quickly continued on foot. Icarus held his arms around his scalemail, keeping himself quiet as they slowly approached.

They saw flashes of feathers. After having been at the arena, they instantly recognized them as the feathers of a griffon. They saw someone in the glimmer of gold armour, and they quickly counted up a group of six more men in the same rough, patchy legionnaire armour, two of which looked much larger than the others. The person who was on the griffon was torn off it by the raiders, and they all swung their swords down.

As the trio swarmed around the griffon and its rider, they hadn’t yet been noticed.

Pandora ran up. “Hey! Stop what you’re doing!”

Holding up her hands, she shot out a burst of flame. The raiders were immediately alerted as the burst of fire came for them, sculpting carefully around the griffon and the rider to spread rapidly and engulf four of the raiders at the front.

Icarus quickly joined his friend, his shield up and both the physical and spiritual version of Lorakai’s sword drawn. One of the raiders burned by Pandora’s spell turned, locking eyes with Icarus in time for him to send out his own spell, the sound of dolorous bells ringing through their mind as their body rotted, crumpling and falling to the ground.

With one down, they could see the griffon a bit better. It was a bit smaller than Orion’s, and the rider wasn’t anyone else they recognized. Their armour wasn’t familiar either.

Mayes ran around the side, swinging out with their katana at one of the larger looking men, and carving a sizable gash across his chest.

They were all aware of their presence now. One of the smaller men, wielding a much nicer looking weapon, turned to rally the others. “Don’t worry about the small fries! Focus on the griffon!”

The raider captain swung to attack the griffon rider. The rider took an axe to the chest three times, the blade piercing through their armour. The rider fell instantly to the ground, and they did not get up again.

Disobeying direct orders from the captain, the one by the first man to go down ran forwards towards Icarus. He swung out with his sword, but the blow deflected off Icarus’s shield. The one beside Mayes swung out recklessly, turning around to brandish his sword. He slashed back, landing a blow that was only a fraction as powerful as the damage Mayes had dealt before.

The other two concentrated on grabbing at the griffon’s reins and saddle, trying to restrain it. The griffon batted out a wing to knock one back as the other grabbed onto the reins, starting to pull it away. The creature was bleeding quite heavily from its hindquarters, with a slash across its front shoulder. One of the wings looked rather battered and broken.

A beam of fire exploded out of Pandora’s pendulum, shaping around Mayes to hit their attacker straight in the face. Three more beams followed, hitting another three raiders in quick succession. One of them hit the ground.

Icarus shot out another spell, and yet another bandit fell. Moving quickly, he bolted towards the next raider, his spiritual weapon flying past him to hit the raider on the griffon, striking across his shoulder.

Mayes swung Silence, stabbing a series of holes through the patched together armour of the raider by them as the man collapsed to the ground. Bringing up their weapon to strike the other larger one, they couldn’t land the hit. Their armour was much tougher than the others had been.

The one holding the griffon retaliated against Icarus, but as his blade made contact, a flash of lightning exploded out of Icarus. The electricity crackled down the opposing blade before engulfing the body of the raider. The man was quite fried, and rather shocked as he realized what he was dealing with.

The raider facing off against Mayes brought out a scimitar, cutting into Mayes and turning to hit again on the backswing. The blade cut into Mayes, who was only able to half dodge the second attack. Immediately, the man flipped a dagger around in their other hand, punching forwards to stab them in the gut.

The griffon bit at the raider holding it down, an injured limb coming forward and failing to strike as it struggled back, desperately pulling back on the reins. Two sets of double beams shot towards each of the remaining raiders from Pandora’s crystal. One of the beams went wide as she redirected it at the last moment to avoid the griffon, but the other three stuck true. Across the dark landscape were explosions of lightning and fire, with Mayes stealthing through it all unseen.

Another spell came from Icarus as he hit with Lorakai’s sword, and another rider shriveled and decayed from the necrotic damage. The ghostly version of the same weapon went floating off towards the final raider, swooping around to avoid Mayes. Mayes stabbed into the final raider as the griffon reared its head. The raider swung back at Mayes, who dodged expertly. Abandoning the fight, the raider ran past to grab the griffon. Mayes landed another hit as he ran past, but the man continued forwards. Missing a swing against Icarus, the raider stabbed his dagger into the griffon. As the creature moved away, he struck it against the hindquarters again. The creature wasn’t trying to flee the scene, but it was trying to get away from the weapons.

Pandora’s pendulum swung, and once more bells rang out in the man’s head. After another spell from Icarus, the man was barely on his feet. Icarus pushed himself between him and the griffon, sending out his spiritual weapon. The ghostly sword swerved around Mayes’ head as it stabbed in.

Mayes ran in with the katana. Although their first strike missed, they brandished the greek sword and beheaded the man as the final body fell to the ground.

Pandora and Icarus hurried over, bowing their heads to the griffon. The creature was still panicked, but it didn’t want to run from the body of the rider. As they got closer, it backed away, letting out a pained shriek.

They approached carefully. The griffon didn’t want to let them get any closer than ten feet from it. As they turned to start moving towards the rider’s body, it let out another loud shriek. The creature paced back and forth around them.

Icarus went to check the body. The rider was an elven figure, quite tall with tan skin, with long curly dark hair under a helmet, now fallen off, that had wings around the side of it. There was an arrow sticking out of his side in a gap between the armour, and before long, Icarus was able to discern that it was a poison arrow. The wound looked inflamed, and was perhaps more the cause of death than the actual blow. The body had a few small pouches with him, but the corpse was just laying there. Icarus checked the pouches for any clue of their identity, but as they kneeled down to check the pockets, the griffon charged forwards to headbutt them. It wasn’t painful, but the griffon wanted him away.

“Hey hey hey,” Icarus raised his hands. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. We’re just here to help.”

The bird cocked its head slightly, listening.

“I’m sorry that this happened. We just wanted to help. We didn’t get here in time.”

The griffon squealed, and backed away slightly. It stood there for a moment before it flopped down to the side, its chest moving heavily with effort.

“It’s injured,” Pandora worried.

Icarus held out a hand, passing a bit of his healing magic over to the creature. “We’re here to help you, if you can trust us.”

The griffon was definitely listening, cocking its head again. It bowed to him, and Icarus bowed back. The griffon walked over to the body, nudging it sadly.

“I’m sorry.”

The bird squawked.

Icarus pet its head. Where the blood was seeping out before, its wounds were starting to dry.

“You know…” Mayes eyed the bird. “We know another griffon rider. Back in the city. He’s really nice.”

The griffon gave them a questioning stare.

“Yeah, Orion,” Icarus nodded.

“His name is Orion,” Mayes informed the bird. “Would at least know what to do to help it.”

“Yeah. Do you want to come with us?” Icarus offered.

The griffon nudged the body again.

“We’ll bring your friend. Okay? We’re not gonna leave you here.”

The creature started rubbing the bridle against the ground, trying to get it off. Icarus unhooked it, and then the bird sat down, laying its head on its legs.

“I don’t think we can rest here,” Icarus warned.

The bird gave an indignant squawk.

Icarus chuckled a bit, and sighed. “One of us… go get the horses?”

Pandora looked over to the other campfire. It was far enough away that the two remaining hadn’t heard the fighting, but it was still only a quarter mile off. “I don’t really want to leave that,” Pandora gestured.

“No, that’s true… So we should go back and free the other creatures in the cages?”

“Potentially. We don’t know what’s in there, maybe it’s more of them.”

“Yeah…” Icarus looked to the griffon. “Any more of your friends taken?”

The griffon looked at him in confusion.

“Were you alone?”

It squawked.

Icarus shook his head, grinning. “Don’t know why I thought I could speak to a bird,” he chuckled. “Okay, um…”

“Well, if we make a camp anywhere near here, they’re most likely going to see us,” Pandora warned.

“Yeah. We need to deal with them.”

“There’s only two of them there,” Mayes shrugged.

“Yeah. Feeling exhausted, but, let’s try it.”

From what Mayes had seen, they didn’t seem too strong. “They’d go down easy.”

“Okay.”

“That’s good,” Pandora nodded. “Finish them off.”

“Yeah.”

“If you’d let me sneak around,” Mayes offered, “I’d be able to get one of them down before they even notice.”

“I can probably cause a distraction as well.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Okay.”

They approached the camp quietly enough that the final two raiders didn’t hear them coming. Icarus hung back slightly with the griffon, who followed behind, but would let him hold it.

Mayes snuck up to the camp. The two of them were sitting by the campfire, playing cards. Pandora and Icarus could barely see Mayes as they flattened themselves against the rock. In three very quick steps, sliding past one of the cages, Mayes sliced their knife into the first man’s throat, and he dropped down at the campfire.

The other one looked up at Mayes in shock. They managed to slash their greek sword against the final raider, as from the other side, Icarus shot out a crossbow bolt into their shoulder. In the same moment, Pandora shot out a bolt of fire that landed square in the man’s chest.

The raider didn’t make it long enough to cross the fire to get to them, falling to the ground in utter silence.

It was just in time, as the griffon made another shriek of annoyance, stomping its feet in the dirt.

“Hey hey hey,” Icarus hushed it.

The griffon snorted at him.

Mayes led the group over to the cages. Lifting the sheets over the cages, the first thing they saw was a huge lion, with a glittering, fleecy mane, golden hair, and intelligent blue eyes staring back at them, glowing slightly in the dark. It let out a huge roar into their faces, pressing up against the front of the cage. It was twice the size of any lion they had seen before.

“We’re here to help you,” Icarus placated.

The lion turned around, pacing back and forth in the cage. There was no food in there.

“They’re starving,” Pandora worried.

Mayes tossed in some of the packed meats from the bee farm, and went to examine the cage. There was a simple lock on the door.

Moving to the second one, lifting up the tarp, it first looked as if the huge cage was completely empty. Looking down, they saw something that looked sort of like a pine marten, but completely static. It looked like it was made of solid bronze, unmoving.

The third one smelled rather bad as they approached. They lifted up the sheet. Filling the cage to the top, its head against the top of the bars, was a large creature they hadn’t seen before, but they had read about in textbooks. It had the body of a buffalo atop four squat legs, and what looked like something between a cow and a warthog’s head on an elongated neck. It was a catoblepas, a kind of misshapen cow creature filling the cage, almost twelve feet high. It crouched its neck down inside it, letting out a smelly huff of breath where it was pressed against the front bars.

“They can’t have all been captured in this area,” Icarus reasoned. “Right? They must have been…”

“They must have been transporting them,” Pandora agreed.

“That makes sense, yeah.”

Exploring further around the rock, they found carts and other evidence of smuggling. They didn’t find much about where the smugglers had been going, but there were records of the creatures they had found, and records of the prices they were expecting to fetch for them. The big cattle creature had a few different suggested prices with question marks. One of them just said,  _ “For meat?” _

The fleecemane lion, as it was identified on the paper, was estimated to go for almost 100 platinum. The other, labelled as a bronze sable, had more and more question marks next to it.

They also found various camping supplies, their rations and meat, bedrolls, and a few flasks of oil. They grabbed three for their lanterns.

“So do we… take them back to Erran to be dealt with?” Icarus wondered. “Or do we like, release them here?”

They flicked through some notes about where the creatures had been found. The sable was captured when it approached the raider’s camp, though they hadn’t understood why it approached, or what it was. The lion was caught out in the wild, and the catoblepas was stolen from someone’s farmland, though it didn’t say where. It certainly wasn’t a creature they had seen farmed anywhere in Erran.

Icarus sighed. “I feel weird about just letting them out, but I don’t want to just leave them in cages.”

“Yeah, I agree,” Mayes replied.

“Yeah,” Pandora frowned. “The sable, I think, would be safe to let out.”

“I don’t know what it is,” Icarus warned.

“I mean, especially if it came to them…”

“Okay…”

“Like, it maybe would just go, if it wanted to go.”

“Perhaps,” Mayes considered.

“The lion, I’m a little bit more wary of.”

“I guess, yeah,” Icarus agreed. He turned to Mayes. “If you can open that cage, then?”

Mayes nodded. “The lion- ”

“Not the lion!”

“I could open any of them, probably.”

“I’d say the sable.”

“The lion,” Mayes continued, “I feel like… might understand us, if we talk to it. But it doesn’t guarantee that it won’t…”

“Attack.”

“Attack,” Mayes admitted.

Pandora frowned. “I agree. I don’t… I don’t like the idea of them being in the cages, though.”

“No. No, absolutely not. But at least the um… catoblepas… we could maybe bring to a farm, in Erran. If it’s a farm creature.”

“Maybe it’ll just follow us,” Icarus guessed. “Instead of just, being shoved in this…”

“Yeah, exactly. Do you want to- ” Mayes cleared their throat. “Right, you guys want me to break the sable out...”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe try and talk to the lion while I do that?”

“Okay.”

Pandora took some of their meats, as well as the food from the camp, splitting it up between the cages and leaving some for the griffon.

Icarus appraised the sable. “I just don’t know how a  _ statue _ jumped at them,” he chuckled.

“I feel there is more to this thing than just a statue,” Pandora grinned.

“I’m curious,” Mayes agreed. They headed over to the sable. After fiddling with their lockpicks for thirty seconds or so, it clicked open. The door swung open, and they braced themselves. The small, bronze statue inside the cage was completely frozen for a moment, and then, it creaked slightly.

Suddenly, it scurried off incredibly fast, straight out and past their legs, and off across the camp. It disappeared into the night, scuttering on four legs and moving very fast.

“Bye,” Pandora waved. She swallowed, and then turned to the next cage. “Lion.”

Icarus had vaguely heard of the myth of the fleecemane lion, a creature considered to be extinct or close to extinction. Some would argue the creature was a messenger of the Gods, or a gift from the Gods. There was no real proof to that effect, but people used to idolize them in slightly more ancient cultures, though they hadn’t been seen around for a long time. He knew people used to fight them as a coming-of-age trial, but it was a tradition that was long in the past.

Icarus approached the cage door. The lion was turned away, laying down and facing the back.

“You’re not meant to be here, are you?”

The lion gave a vague look over its shoulder at them.

“You shouldn’t be in a cage,” Pandora continued.

Icarus shook his head. “No.”

“Someone as magnificent as you… We’re going to let you out, but… Please don’t attack us?”

“We don’t want to bring you harm.”

The lion laid its face down on its legs.

“Those people who hurt you,” Pandora offered, “They’re not… They’re not going to be a problem anymore.”

It didn’t move, flicking its tail slightly. The same silvery hair trailed down to the end of its tail, which looked like it was catching the light of the fire, sparkling slightly.

Searching around for a moment, Icarus found the keys to the cage on a nearby body. Taking a breath, he inserted the key.

At the click of a lock, the lion’s ears pricked up and turned back. It pulled itself up to its feet, turning around in the cage. It lowered its head, neck down as it snarled.

Icarus opened the door, walking around and away with the bars to give the lion a clear exit. The lion didn’t run, instead padding out slowly, before doing a long, feline stretch. Then, it padded over to the two bodies of the raiders. Sniffing at them, the lion took one in its mouth, and walked off with it.

It slipped out of the campfire light, but they could see it for quite a way longer as it walked off into the wildlands.

Icarus let out a breath. “Okay! That went better than I kind of anticipated…”

“Yeah,” Pandora gave a small smile. “I hope it’s okay out there.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Inside the cage where it had been, there were a few strands of its silvery mane caught on the cage, still stuck in there. Icarus plucked them.

Mayes grinned at the hairs. “A gift. For Damen.”

Icarus’s eyes widened for a moment, and then he turned to Pandora. “That thing was majestic, huh?”

“It was,” she agreed.

“We should get this other one out.”

Mayes unlocked the final cage. Immediately, they saw its neck was even longer than they expected. It extended out as they opened the door, shuddering in relief as it squeezed its body out. It was huge, coming up another three feet above them. The creature lumbered around the fire, eating at the dry grass.

“Herbivore,” Icarus observed.

“Yup,” Pandora nodded.

Mayes gave it a pat.

“Should we camp here for the night, then?” Icarus suggested. “Or…? We need to rest...”

“Yeah, we do need rest,” Pandora considered.

“I mean, it’s a perfectly good camp,” Mayes reasoned.

Icarus sighed. “I’m exhausted.”

“Yeah,” Pandora stretched.

They shifted the other body out of the camp, rolling it away. It was a good camp, nicely set up with a good view of the path. The campfire was well lit, and Pandora was able to bring it back to life a bit with a little spell, before walking the perimeter to set an alarm spell.

They laid out their bedrolls. Icarus tied up their horses close by, and used one of their ropes to loop a loose tie around the catoblepas’s neck. The animal didn’t resist, only slightly bothered by the interruption from eating grass.

The griffon had not come into the camp area, but had instead climbed to the top of the rock, laying down there.

Icarus looked up. “You want to take the meat to it?”

“Okay,” Pandora agreed. She made her way up, making offerings to the griffon.

It looked at her, then snatched the meat away before backing up.

Pandora held up her hands. “I’m not going to take it. It’s for you.”

The griffon tossed it up in the air and ate it.

“Thought you might be hungry.”

It squawked.

“We’re all going to go to sleep now. You’re welcome to stay around here where the fire’s warm, if you like.”

It squawked again.

“Have a good night.”

There was a final squawk, and then it laid down again,

Pandora climbed back down to the camp. The three of them got comfortable in the shadow of the rock, with the open cages surrounding them.

Icarus got out the compass again, studying it. The user would have to become well attuned to it to use it properly, but it would give the user moral guidance on a dilemma. It wouldn’t give a yes or no answer, as morality isn’t that simple of a concept, but the compass face could be used in several ways. By laying out custom symbols, one could ask the compass to point to them. Alternatively, the compass face could be used as a percentile, describing how close a suggested course of action was to properly achieving a specific goal.

Studying it a bit more, he suddenly felt a connection to it he hadn’t felt before. Though it had still been wavering north, it began to spin slightly. When he asked a question as an example, it no longer pointed to him, and instead gave a more specific answer.

Mayes sat with their dagger. While they still couldn’t decipher the full meaning of it, it was definitely a useful weapon. They couldn’t quite get the rest of it clean and usable yet, so they couldn’t fully decipher the runes carved into the blade underneath, but they were sure it would have some other ability.

They looked down at it, grinning a bit. “I’ll clean you at home,” they whispered.

Icarus sat up. “So I’ve got a question, Pandora.”

She glanced over. “Yeah?”

“Is there any way for you to… hide the flame of that torch that you’ve got now? Without setting what you’re hiding it with on fire? Or is it just always going to be… obvious?”

Pandora waved her hand, and the flames diminished. “I figured it was just that simple.”

“Oh… Is it… done?” Icarus worried.

Pandora waved her hand again, bringing it back to life once more.

“Oh, that’s so handy.”

“It’s really useful, right?” she grinned.

“Yeah, good find.”

“We’re keeping that with us.”

“This thing,” Icarus held up the compass, “It just... helps decide on moral things.”

“It’s like a little conscious on your shoulder, telling you what to do.”

“Yeah. It’ll be handy.”

“Yeah,” Mayes approved.

Icarus let out another long sigh. “Okay, I don’t mind taking a watch if you guys want to take some rest first.”

“You took a real beating today,” Pandora countered.

Icarus blinked as he realized the weight of his injuries. “Yeah…”

“I can take first watch,” Mayes offered.

“Yeah, take a rest, Icarus,” Pandora coaxed.

Icarus laid down. “Okay. I don’t want to argue.”

“Just, wake… whenever you’re up,” Mayes shrugged. “In a few hours.”

Icarus slept, as did Pandora.

Mayes looked over the bags of bee items that Katina had packed for them. She had written them letters describing how to use them all.

The bee venom would increase immunities to certain kinds of poison and venom through extended exposure. Applying it to a poisoned wound would negate the poison effect, but drinking one vial per day for a month could enable the user to gain poison resistance for the following month. Drinking one a week after that would continue the effect.

However, to do so would be quite an expensive endeavor. At the bottom of the note, Katina informed them that it was ten gold per vial at their shop, but other herbalists and medicinal shops may charge more.

The pollen was supposed to improve endurance and enhance immunity. It could be used as a single dose to improve one’s constitution for a day, but it could also be consumed daily for a month to improve general constitution for the following month. As with the venom, another dose every week would continue the effect.

The night passed uneventfully. Mayes heard a very distant lion’s roar, and though it was clearly quite aways from them now, it was very loud, echoing across the flat landscape. At some point during their watch, the griffon got up and climbed down the rock, heading back in the direction of the rider’s body.

Mayes sat with a cup of tea, trying very hard not to think about certain things.

Halfway through the night, they roused Pandora.

She blinked awake. “Hm? Hi…”

“Hey.”

“Okay…”

“The griffon’s gone. Might be back in the morning, but…”

“Okay. Anything else to note?”

“The lion is still out there, somewhere.”

“Well, I would hope so.”

“Yeah, but like, you might still be able to hear it.”

“Okay.”

“Just don’t be too spooked.”

“No, it’s fine,” Pandora nodded. “Get some sleep.”

“G’night.”

Mayes headed to sleep as Pandora sat. She was suitably distracted by everything on her mind. Sitting alone at the campfire, she felt thoughts creeping back in, and the memories of what she had heard over the last few days. Uncomfortable thoughts of the last day were quite distracting, but thankfully, nothing happened for the rest of the night. She saw a couple of small animals and insects scuttling around near the camp, but nothing passed through her alarm.

  
  


While Mayes slept, images of the half eaten bodies in the underwater cave seeped back into their mind. In their head, throughout their horrifying dreams, the bodies seemed to take on faces they recognized, but couldn’t place. They saw flickers of fire at the edges of their vision, and the same lumbering dark shape through a treeline that they couldn’t place anywhere.

Morning rolled around. Pandora was still sitting there, thinking to herself as the others woke. The griffon was no longer lying up on the rock, but in the daylight, they saw the shape of it laying with the body of the rider, faint on the horizon.

Icarus took the book from the raider’s camp with the information about the animals as evidence, packing it away with the lion’s fur. There was nothing left on the other body but ratty weapons and armour.

They headed over towards the griffon, grabbing their horses and the strange cow creature. The griffon was not sleeping, but simply lying there, its head on the body of the rider.

“Hey buddy,” Mayes gently called.

The griffon made a small noise of recognition.

“Do you want to come… find some new friends?”

It pushed itself up onto its feet, nudging its head against the rider again.

Icarus bent to investigate the body once more. It was daytime now, and they had earned the griffon’s trust. Gently reassuring the bird as they went, he checked the body over. There was a small pouch with 12 gold pieces inside, and a set of oddly weighted dice. The boots he was wearing looked particularly fancy. They also found a small silver metal disk, with the image of a feather engraved onto the top of it. There was a golden pendant with the insignia of a griffon in flight hanging around the man’s neck.

Finally, there were two letters. One of them was sealed, but they quickly popped open the unsealed one to read it. It seemed to be an order requesting that, if found, the reader should burn the body.

Icarus sighed. “Okay.”

He passed the note to the others.

Mayes nodded. “Okay.”

“That’s so sad,” Pandora sighed. “Like… I don’t know if this person would have family? In Erran, maybe?”

“Perhaps.”

“Surely they’d want to know?”

“Let’s take the necklace,” Icarus decided.

“The identifying things,” Pandora agreed.

Icarus looked at the sealed letter. It had a small red stamp on it, with the same insignia of a griffon in flight. He cracked it open, pulling out the parchment from inside to unfold it.

It was a mercenary contract, signed at the bottom by  _ The Brotherhood. _ It was ordering for the location and elimination of someone by the name of Niklaus Müller. There were no further details.

Icarus froze.

“What does it say?” Pandora prompted.

The triton stared at the letter.

Mayes eyed him. “You good, Icarus?”

Icarus blinked. “...Uh….”

“What is it?” Pandora urged.

“Uh, it… Uh,” he passed over the letter, having gone very pale.

Pandora read it over. “It’s a mercenary contract.” She gave it over to Mayes for them to read. “What’s wrong?”

Icarus put a hand on his face. “I know that name.”

“Niklaus Müller?”

“Yeah.”

“Who is it?”

A few seconds of silence ticked past. “...Someone I thought was dead.”

“It’s okay,” Pandora gently guided Icarus to sit down. The triton was breathing a bit heavily, fidgeting with his hands and his hair. “Just take a… Take a minute.”

“I’m gonna- We need- Okay, uh,” Icarus took a steadying breath. “Okay, um… We should move. We need to deal with the body, and… we need to go.”

“Okay,” the other two overlapped, trying to settle him.

Icarus quickly stood. “Can one of you tell the griffon what’s going on? I need to… have a walk, for a minute.”

“Okay, sure, sure sure,” Pandora agreed. She went up to the griffon, addressing it. “Hi.”

It bowed its head down to her, and she bowed back.

“Um, I think… I feel like you might know what we have to do? To your friend? To… send him onto the next life?”

The griffon let out a huff of breath, looking away.

“I know, I’m sorry. Does… Does… Do they have family? That you know of?”

The griffon just looked back at her, its expression unreadable.

“We’re going to try our best to try and find out who this person was. And… if they do have anyone, that they would want to know, that they had passed on.”

It squawked.

“If we take…?” Pandora showed it the amulet, and the silver disk.

The griffon shook its head towards the saddle it was still wearing. The same symbol was engraved onto the saddle, along with the name  _ Ajax _ at the top.

“Are you Ajax?”

It squawked.

She smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Ajax.”

It beat its wings, rolling its body around as it rubbed at the saddle.

“I’ll take that off for you,” Pandora offered. “It must be uncomfortable.”

It stood still and let her remove it, and the bird shook its body out. The wings looked much better this morning. It beat their wings quite comfortably, and then trotted around back to the body, nuzzling against it.

“We’re going to find your family. I promise.”

There was one more nod, and the griffon looked between the three of them, glancing to Icarus in the distance as he walked back.

Nudging the body a final time, the griffon started walking, then running, before it erupted into flight. Taking off into the air, it struggled slightly before catching itself, flying off.

Mayes watched it go. “So long, Ajax.”

Icarus headed straight back, walking through the others and directly to the body, kneeling down with his holy symbol.

As he sent out the spell, the body’s eyes immediately opened.

“Icarus,” Pandora warned.

Mayes examined the rider. “Be careful with your questions,” they advised.

Icarus swallowed, looking around for a moment and rubbing his face. “Fuck…”

Then, he straightened, and began interrogating the body. “Who is The Brotherhood?”

The corpse began to mumble. “...Brotherhood… Mercenary company…”

“Were you taking this scroll to somebody? For them to do it? Were you doing it?”

“Weren’t… taking it… Had taken a contract…”

“...Why are they after Niklaus Müller?”

“...I can’t say…” The corpse looked a bit confused. “I don’t know…”

Icarus was silent for a moment, staring at the ground. “Where is he?”

“...I don’t know.”

Icarus let his head fall back in frustration.

The breath expelled from the body.

Icarus put his hands over his face, leaning back forwards over the body. “No!”

There was a long silence.

“You need a minute?” Mayes offered.

Icarus took a deep sigh.

“Mayes, maybe take him for a walk?” Pandora advised. “I’ll deal with the body.”

“Okay,” Mayes whispered. As they made to start walking, they eyed the man’s shoes again. They really were very nice, but they weren’t sure how they felt about taking them from the body.

As they hesitated in thought, Icarus took them. He passed them over to Mayes.

Icarus gave the body their last rites, and then allowed Mayes to take him away to walk back towards the waterline.

Pandora checked the body over one last time, and then stood back. With a wave of her hand, she set it alight. It burned up quickly.

She went back to the horses.

Mayes allowed Icarus to have his space. The triton was completely silent. He waited for Pandora to finish, and then went back to the horses.

Mayes nodded to the others. “Let’s go home.”

“Yeah,” Pandora agreed.

They remounted their horses, the large cow creature in tow. Quite somberly, they made their way back towards Erran. It was a slower journey with the huge animal roped behind them, and the atmosphere was strange. They were unsure of what they had just uncovered, but soon enough, the huge walls of the city came into view.

They found themselves approaching the gates of Erran, returning once again to the Academy.

  
  



	10. Ghosts of the Past, Episode Ten

They rode into Erran with the catoblepas. The citizens of Erran were turning to look as they guided the gargantuan cow into the city, riding on their horses as they headed back to the stables from which they had borrowed them.

Reaching the stables, they searched around for Thekla. She wasn’t hard to find, and as they led the giant cow with the elongated giraffe neck around the back, she looked up in shock and surprise. “...Oh!”

“Hey,” Mayes waved.

“...What did you…?”

Icarus pointed to the creature. “Do you need one of these?”

“Or do you know anyone who might have lost one recently?” Pandora asked.

Thekla gaped for a moment. “Uh… I don’t know the answer to either of those questions. But, um…”

“I don’t think we can take this thing back to school,” Icarus chuckled.

“Where did you get that?”

“We found it on the road,” Pandora explained. “There was, like, poachers… and exotic animals. They had it in a cage.”

“According to their letters, I think they stole it from a farmer or something recently,” Mayes continued.

Thekla stared up at it. “Well, that’s… quite the creature to steal, unnoticed.”

“Yeah.”

“Would you mind, like, at least looking after it for a bit?” Icarus asked. “Whilst we… I’ve got the logbooks still, so we can take it to the school, and someone else can…”

“You know what, that sounds good,” Thekla agreed. “You’re back in good time, thank you for that, very appreciated.”

“Thank you, Thekla.”

“Um… Do you want me to take that?”

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed.

“Yeah,” Pandora followed. “Like, we don’t really know how to take care of it?”

“I’m sure I know someone who does,” Thekla assured them. She took the rope looped loosely around its neck, leading it into the paddock. The horses scattered into one corner, looking at it strangely. “Right… I will take your horses back, anything I need to know?”

“No, it’s all good,” Mayes nodded.

“Good horses,” Icarus agreed. “Thank you.”

Pandora said goodbye to Whirlwind, giving them a pet as Icarus did the same with Artax.

“Looks like you kept the equipment in good condition,” Thekla smiled. “Thank you very much.”

“No worries,” Icarus nodded. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Pandora followed.

Thekla grinned at them. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

Mayes gave a little salute. “See you around.”

“And let me know if you find out any more about… the… the big friend…”

“Of course.”

Icarus turned on his heel, starting to walk back towards Delphos. The other two followed behind, and the three of them began walking through the streets. They took a glance over at some of the carts, but seeing a familiar goblin face, decided to keep walking, turning their heads away.

It was quite a long, slow walk. Icarus carried on ahead, still silent.

“Hey, slow down!” Pandora called.

The three of them made their way back to the Academy steps. Icarus walked into Delphos, heading directly up to Sebaste’s office.

He welcomed them in, and they passed on the details of the contract. Sebaste marked off a bit of their debt. After splitting the profits between the three of them, minus the 20% fee for the school, Mayes stood at 100 gold debt, with 172 for Pandora, and 255 for Icarus.

“Also, we got this logbook,” Icarus offered.

Sebaste looked over, confused. “Oh, okay?”

“There were raiders on the way back that had been stealing exotic animals, including a…”

“Catoblepas,” Pandora offered.

“That. Which is currently with Thekla.”

“Right,” Sebaste blinked. “Thank you, we should… we should probably see to that. And you, um… dealt with it? Dispatched them?”

“Yeah,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah,” Icarus followed. “And that’s all they had.”

Sebaste nodded. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

Pandora gave Icarus a look.

“Well, let me know when you’re ready to do another contract,” Sebaste continued. “In the meantime, good luck with your studies.”

“Thank you,” Pandora nodded.

“Thank you very much,” Icarus followed.

Sebaste let them go with a thanks for taking care of the raiders, assuring them he would inform the city council that there were raiders in the area.

Mayes shut the door behind them. “So, what do we want to do next?”

Icarus stared at the ground.

Pandora looked him over. “You okay, buddy?”

“You got some stuff you need to deal with?” Mayes guessed.

“Kind of,” Icarus replied.

“Do you want to be alone for a bit?” Pandora offered.

“No.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mayes prompted.

Icarus shifted his jaw from side to side. “Not really, but at the same time, yes… I feel like, I need to tell you guys  _ something _ about what’s going on, because I need to go speak to… someone, about this. Let’s… go somewhere, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Let’s go get a snack,” Pandora nodded.

“Snack sounds great,” Icarus sighed. “I want to go to the Maw anyway…”

“So we could go stop by one of the little…” Mayes waved a vague hand. “Go get some…”

“We could get some baklava,” Pandora suggested.

Icarus tilted his head with interest. “We could get some baklava…”

“Get some brunch?” Mayes suggested.

“I want dolmades,” Icarus declared.

“Dolmades?” Pandora grinned. “Would dolmades help?”

“Yeah. Yeah…”

“Okay. We’ll get dolmades.”

The three of them headed out of the school, making their way to the boulevard outside the coliseum. After about fifteen minutes of walking, it was a lot less busy there in the daytime. There were a few people milling around outside the coliseum, enjoying the sights, but there was no market on today, and nobody queuing up for a show. It was just a quiet strip of tavernas, most of them open for lunch, and most of them quiet.

They had a mezze laid out for them, while Pandora and Mayes gave Icarus some time to himself to indulge in many, many dolmades.

After a while, Icarus passed the others the contract on Niklaus Müller. There was a long hesitation as Icarus wrestled with what exactly he wanted to reveal. “...I want to know what’s going on with this,” he finally sighed. “And… the only other person I know that deals with griffons, is in there.”

He pointed to the Maw.

“Yeah,” Pandora nodded.

“I mean, if we’d had the actual griffon with us, we were gonna go speak to Orion anyway,” Mayes shrugged.

“That’s true,” Icarus considered. “I don’t know if Orion knows anything about this, about this… I don’t, like… griffon, pendant…”

“He’s our best bet?” Pandora guessed.

“Yeah.”

“We can go talk to him.”

Icarus hesitated again. “I… don’t want any of this to get back to Lorakai.”

Pandora eyed him. “Okay… Do you mind if I ask why? I mean, you tell him everything, don’t you?”

“...Yeah.”

Mayes raised a brow. “But?”

“He’d worry. And I want to sort this out, before- Because I don’t…  _ think _ it’s anything, really, and I don’t want to…”

“But you’re stressed about it.”

“Yeah.”

“You said you thought this person was dead?”

“...Yeah.”

“How come?”

Icarus sniffed. “Remember that boat I was on? Talked to you about?”

“Mhm.”

“So was Niklaus.”

“Okay.”

“And as far as I was aware…”

“Everyone else… didn’t make it.”

Icarus swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Who is he?” Pandora probed.

Another long hesitation. “Someone… that I’m not too keen to run into again.”

“Okay… Like, not keen to run into as in you guys didn’t get along? Or, you can see why there’s a contract over his head?”

Icarus let out a bit of a strangled chuckle. “I mean… the last time I saw him, I was nine. So, I don't know. It… maybe. Uh… it’s a lot. Complicated.”

“It’s okay,” Mayes shrugged. “A lot can happen in fifteen years.”

“Yeah, um…” Icarus tapped anxiously on the table. “But I trust you two.”

“We’ll talk to Orion.”

“Yeah.” Icarus straightened at the table, taking a deep breath. “Okay.”

“If you don’t want us to repeat any of this, or say anything to Lorakai,” Pandora offered, “We won’t.”

“No,” Icarus agreed. “I would like this to stay… amongst just us.”

“So long as you’re safe, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Like, this isn’t anything that’s gonna come back and bite you, is it?”

“No, no. It shouldn’t. But, uh- ”

“If it was, you would tell us, yes?”

Icarus gave another nervous laugh. “I don’t know if it would, or not.”

“Okay. Well, if anything changes, we’re on your team.”

“...I know. Lorakai just can’t know, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Mayes followed. “Now take a big, deep breath, and just enjoy lunch for a little bit.”

“Yeah,” Icarus whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Is it too early for ale?”

“No,” the other two grinned.

Icarus chuckled. “Great.”

The server came over, adding a pitcher of wine and a pitcher of ale to their table. They finished up their lunch, polishing it off and taking a little bag with their leftovers.

Icarus had no leftovers.

Feeling fortified by the food, the wine, and the ale, they stood up and headed across the wide road and through the grassy bank to the doors of the coliseum.

Again, they were not open.

Mayes knocked. “It’s fine, they know who we are now.”

“It seems weird to me,” Pandora commented. “To be knocking on the front door of a huge stadium.”

“Yeah, we should probably go around the back,” Icarus realized.

“Well, then let’s go around the back,” Mayes shrugged.

They went around to the familiar side door, knocking there. It took a short while, but it was eventually opened by an attendant. Looking over the trio, recognition flashed across their face. “Oh, it's you!”

“Hey,” Mayes nodded.

“Hello,” Pandora greeted. “Um, we were wondering, is Orion here?”

The attendant thought. “Uh… I believe, I believe so.”

“Can we come see him?” Icarus pressed.

“Just… Come on, step inside…”

They were asked to wait a moment as the attendant hurried off and up one of the corridors.

“While we’re here as well,” Mayes considered, “Do you think it’s worth seeing if Damen is still around?”

“I was just going to say,” Pandora agreed.

“We should really… check on him.”

“Yeah, see if he’s okay.”

They were left on their own for five minutes or so. Icarus was bouncing anxiously. The attendant hurried back, giving each of them a visitor's pass to freely enter the coliseum whenever they pleased. “If you wanna follow me?”

“Thank you,” Pandora nodded.

Mayes took the pass. “Thanks.”

They headed back through the winding passages in the back of the Maw. Then, they were led out through one of the side tunnels into the dirt of the arena itself. It was now a familiar feeling, though the colossal space was currently occupied for training. Different dummies and obstacles had been set up, and there were a number of gladiators fighting one on one or running drills in teams.

The attendant called out to the nearest of them. It was a male half-elf in his mid twenties, just a bit older than the students. He had a lean, muscular build, and a dark mop of brown, bouncy curls and pale grey eyes. Interestingly, he wasn’t wearing any armour. Icarus had seen him fight before with swords, unarmoured, in the ring. He wore muted shades of purple and blue, linen trousers with a tunic over the top, and bandages wrapped around his knuckles.

He jogged over, grinning. “Hey! What’s up?”

Icarus stared for a moment. “...Hey.”

“Hi,” Pandora smiled.

The attendant hurriedly explained that the trio was looking for Orion.

“Oh, oh,” the man nodded. “I’m Malachi,” he grinned to the group.

“Nice to meet you,” the three of them overlapped.

“Uh, is Orion around?” Icarus pressed. “Or…?”

“Well, if you’re looking for Orion…” Malachi pointed up a finger, “Turn your eyes to the sky.”

Icarus looked up. “Of course.”

Mayes did the same. “Guess he’s doing drills with the griffon.”

They found the griffon flying in synchronized flight with the wyverns, swooping in circles around the arena. It was quite similar to the fight they had performed the other day, and it became quite clear just how much of the show had been performative. They took turns ducking and weaving out of the way, landing hits on each other.

Icarus watched for a moment. “Okay. I guess we can just wait down here, for a minute.”

“Yeah,” Mayes shrugged, turning to Malachi. “You just… Everyone’s sort of about, doing drills today, huh?”

“That’s what we do in the day,” he nodded.

“I guess so.”

“I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Malachi fight?” Icarus wondered.

Mayes squinted at the gladiator. “I don’t think so.”

“You should,” Icarus pressed. “He’s good, very good.”

Malachi chuckled. “Yeah, pretty good.”

“You fight without armour, that’s… that’s awesome, yeah?”

“Thank you, thank you thank you. I should be telling you how awesome you are.”

The trio looked at each other, a bit confused.

Malachi pressed on. “Well, everybody knows what the three of you did the other day.”

Mayes shrugged a bit. “Yeah…”

“We can’t thank you enough for what you did for Damen.”

“Is he okay?” Pandora and Icarus overlapped.

“He’s still here. In the infirmary. He’s… pulling through.”

“Okay,” Icarus sighed.

“Is he… Is he okay to have visitors?” Pandora asked.

“He might be. I think he’s with one of the medical staff right now, but…”

“Well, we can ask, you know,” Icarus nodded.

“Yeah, exactly,” Mayes agreed.

Pandora wrung her hands. “Don’t want to disturb him if he’s resting or whatever.”

“Yeah,” Icarus admitted, “But good to know he’s doing alright, you know?”

“Mhm.”

“You three okay?” Malachi checked.

“Yeah.”

“We’ve just been out on a contract for the school,” Mayes explained.

“Ah,” Malachi grinned. “Budding heroes, I see.”

Pandora laughed. “Don’t know about that.”

“Just trying to repay our debts,” Mayes explained.

“How long have you been here at the Maw?”

“Nearly six years,” Malachi replied. “Yeah.”

“Like, have you always wanted to… be a gladiator, or… did you work outside of it first?”

“Um… well, I guess, for quite a few years, yeah. I grew up in a monastery not far from here, but… Family in the army, I wanted to do something different, you know?”

Icarus chuckled a bit to himself. “Branch out?”

“Yeah! I like it here, I like the… acclaim.”

“What kind of monastery was it?” Pandora wondered.

“Uh, monastery to Sune. But, enough about me, enough about me. Tell me about yourselves, you three! Baby heroes,” he grinned.

Icarus laughed while Mayes puckered in a grimace. “Ew.”

“I don’t know if I’d call myself a hero,” Pandora countered.

“No, no,” Icarus grinned. “Just…”

“These two,” Pandora nodded to her allies. “Maybe.”

“Hey!”

“No,” Mayes dismissed.

“Well the three of you saved one of our men’s lives,” Malachi reasoned. “Is that not heroic?”

“I guess, but like…” Pandora squirmed. “I don’t know…”

“Just the right thing to do,” Mayes reasoned.

“It was the right thing to do.”

Malachi leaned back, chuckling. “You can do the right thing and still be heroic.”

“I don’t know,” Pandora shrugged. “It’s just not how I’ve ever seen myself. And not what I’ve seen… for myself? If that makes sense?”

The gladiator grinned. “How very heroic of you.”

Icarus laughed again.

“Stop!” Pandora chuckled.

“Dug yourself into a pit here,” Icarus teased.

“Yeah…”

“Alright, here he comes,” Malachi pointed upwards. “I will… not get in your way, but…”

“It was really nice to meet you,” Icarus offered.

“It was really nice to meet you,” Pandora echoed.

“The three of you, we definitely owe you drinks or something at some point,” Malachi declared.

“That would be fun.”

“Sure,” Mayes shrugged.

“Yeah,” Icarus nodded.

Malachi held out his hands in invitation. “After this?”

“Sure…”

“It would be really nice to get to know you guys a bit better,” Pandora agreed.

“Yeah!” Malachi grinned. “You too. Baby heroes.”

He winked, and jogged back over to the training area.

Orion came skidding down, landing his spear in the dirt about ten feet from them. Pandora grew instantly giddy.

Orion didn’t notice them at first, pushing his white hair out of his face where it had slicked down before he saw them, exclaiming in surprise as he pointed over excitedly. “Oh!”

“Ah!” Pandora pointed back. “Hi!”

“Hey,” Mayes nodded.

Orion gave the griffon a ruffle and leapt off, bounding over.

“Hi!” Pandora grinned.

“Hi!”

“How are you?!”

“How are  _ you?!” _

“Good!” Pandora beamed. “That was amazing!”

Orion smiled wide at them all. “What are you doing here?”

“We, we came to talk to you!”

“Oh, okay!”

“Um… bit of a, like, long, weird kinda story. We’ve just come back- ”

“Maybe we should speak in private,” Icarus interjected.

“Yeah, I was gonna say,” Mayes warned.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Pandora quieted. “Okay…”

“We... Well sure, we can do that,” Orion agreed. “Shall we go inside?”

“That would be good,” Icarus nodded.

“Okay.”

“Sorry it’s not under better circumstances, though. We wanted to see you… it’s kinda serious.”

“Oh… Of course.”

Orion took on a slightly more serious demeanor. Pandora was a bit sheepish at her earlier excitement, trying to bring her energy back down.

“Right…” he led them inside to one of the private rooms. It wasn’t the same one they had been in before, but it was very similar, with a fancy private lounge for the gladiators that was completely empty at the moment. He sat himself down in a chair. “Right.”

“Um, so, we’ve just come back from a contract,” Pandora began. “And, while we were making our way back to Erran, we ran into… a group of raiders? Who had been… stealing or acquiring and locking up exotic animals. One of them that they were trying to take down was a griffon. And a rider.”

Icarus flicked him the silver and gold disks, engraved with the feather and the griffon. Orion’s face fell instantly. He took them, looking them over solemnly as he rubbed a hand across his face.

Pandora watched him carefully. “...Are you okay?”

He swallowed. “Yeah.”

“You know what they are?” Icarus prompted.

“Yeah.”

“We went through their possessions,” Pandora continued, “Um, and found that he was a member of The Brotherhood, it was called.”

“Or he’s been given, the…” Icarus handed over the scroll with the contract.

“We don’t really know how the organization works, or how it’s set up.”

“Um…” Orion shook his head. “What happened to them?”

Pandora looked down. “The rider didn’t make it. I’m sorry.”

“The griffon is free,” Mayes offered.

Orion nodded quietly to himself. “Okay.”

“We were gonna see if it would follow us, and come back here and show it to you, but it just flew off.”

“Um, we burned the body,” Pandora added. “As was... sort of directed.”

“Yeah,” Orion ran a hand through his hair. “Um, yeah that’s, that’s right…”

Icarus stared at him. “Can you tell me what you know about this? Please?”

Orion took another breath, looking down at the disks. “...Yeah, gimme a sec.”

“Okay.”

Pandora reached out for Orion’s hand. He took it, squeezing it.

Orion looked back up. “Um… This symbol,” he held up the gold disk with the griffon engraved on it.

“Yeah?” Icarus prompted.

“This is a… This is the symbol of a mercenary company called The Brotherhood Of The Griffon. Um…”

“Okay,” Pandora encouraged.

“They’re based on the border of the Shaiste lake, about a hundred miles away.”

“Mhm.”

“Um… I… grew up there.”

“...Were you part of The Brotherhood?”

“Until about two years ago, yeah. This one,” he flicked over the silver disc with the feather on it, “This is a… You can keep this, keep it as a token. The silver one. If you fall from a great height, that’ll catch you.”

“Huh,” Pandora nodded.

“Um… Uh… They are best known for their… Their griffon riders, obviously, but… They have companies of archers, and spearmen. They are…” he let out a long breath. “At least when I was working with them, they’re very… strict. Very just. On what contracts they take. Especially something like this, something… Like, assasination, for one thing. Um, strong sense of morality. Most of them worship Bahamut. They… put a lot of research into whether they believe that someone they’re being tasked to kill deserves it. Um, there were a few… A few occasions where they’d turn around and hunt down the person who took out the contract, because it was a mistake,” he chuckled.

Mayes tilted their head in surprise. “Wow.”

“Um… was it sealed?”

“It was sealed,” Icarus replied. “Is there any way of telling if that’s the case on this one, or was it just a straight out… assasination contract? And if it’s sealed, what does that mean? Is it taken, or was it being taken to somebody else, or…?”

“Uh… If it’s sealed, it means the contract hasn’t been carried out yet. So it’s possibly just been signed.”

Icarus sighed, looking off in thought.

“Is this… someone important to you?”

“...It’s somebody I know.”

“Right.”

“Um…” Icarus pushed the hair from his face. “Fuck, I don’t even know, man. I’m, like… Is this group- Is this Brotherhood- Like, underground? Like- Well, obviously, not, it’s in the sky, but…” he laughed nervously, stumbling over his words. “Is it like, secretive, I mean?”

Orion shrugged. “Not… I don’t know, they don’t really make a huge secret of it. But… they’re not… They’re not open for somebody to walk in and ask questions. Um, they would have more information at the base of operations, but, it’s not something they’d just give out freely to anybody.”

“And that’s the one that’s like, a hundred miles away?”

“Yeah.”

Icarus sighed.

“Would the griffon have gone back there?” Pandora guessed.

“I expect so,” Orion replied. “Um… Like I said, I haven’t been there for two years, but…”

“Why did you leave?” Icarus wondered. “If you don’t… mind me asking…”

“...Um… There was an… incident, on one of our contracts, that made me want to walk away from that life. But nothing against them, nothing… Nothing wrong with the company itself. Um, they’re good people.”

“You believe that, right?”

Orion nodded, and Icarus trusted him. The gladiator scratched his head. “I could, perhaps, help you if I went with you… uh… This is a contract you want to see not… Not fulfilled, I’m guessing?”

Icarus didn’t answer.

“Well, would we need to go there and physically speak to them?” Pandora wondered. “Or could we maybe write to them? Would that be any help?”

“I don’t think they’d answer you through written message,” Orion explained. “Just for the safety of it.”

“Even if you were to maybe countersign it or something?”

“The risk of a message like that being intercepted…”

“I suppose.”

“I mean, I could…”

“It’s just, it’s a long way to go.”

“Yeah,” Orion nodded. “I understand that.”

“Like, for everyone involved here, it’s like…” Pandora allowed her gaze to linger on the triton. “I suppose we need to establish what you want to do exactly.”

“If I’m completely honest, I don’t know what I want to do right now,” Icarus admitted. “I guess this is something I never thought I’d… hear.”

“Do you… I mean, I know you haven’t seen this person for so many years, but… Do you think they would be deserving of this sort of fate?”

Icarus was quiet for a moment. “I want to find out what he’s done.”

“Well, we don’t necessarily need to go to The Brotherhood to do that.”

“No...”

Orion shifted in his seat. “There is a chance, if it was completely sealed… That the Brotherhood hasn’t even had sight of the contract yet. Apart from the rider who was killed. But they will know who that rider was sent out to speak to.”

Icarus swallowed. “I would like to know who that person is.”

“I… Instead of sending correspondence full of questions that they don’t want to answer… Perhaps I can try and set up a meeting, and have one of them come here.”

Pandora looked up at Orion. “You would do that? And… they would do that?”

“I suppose you can’t make promises,” Icarus shrugged.

“I can’t promise,” Orion confirmed. “But I can try and help you. Consider it a thanks for what you did for us.”

“I really appreciate that.”

“Okay.”

“Uh, I don’t know if it’s any help, but I didn’t tell you… about the name that was on the side of the griffon’s saddle?”

Orion leaned forwards. “Yes?”

“Yeah? Um, Ajax?”

He nodded. “Right.”

“Do you know that name?” Pandora wondered.

Orion looked visibly relieved. “No.”

Icarus swallowed. “Okay.”

“Okay, I can write a letter, and send it.”

“Thank you,” Pandora replied.

“I really appreciate this, Orion,” Icarus continued. “I would… Gods, I’m saying this a lot today, I would appreciate it that… if it didn’t leave this room?”

“It won’t,” Orion assured him.

“Thank you.”

“I would appreciate that, too.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Pandora followed.

Mayes nodded. “We can keep secrets.”

Icarus sighed, chuckling a bit. “Whew.”

“Yeah,” Orion relaxed a bit, settling further into his seat.

“Sorry, I didn’t…”

“It’s okay… This was bound to find me one day, I don't exactly make a secret of the griffon, do I?”

Mayes chuckled. “No, that’s kind of the main flaw, isn’t it?”

“Kinds why we came to find you, about griffon things,” Icarus teased.

Orion grinned back for a moment, and then grew serious once more. “I’m glad you did.”

“Yeah.”

“And I’m sorry this has found itself on your shoulders.”

“Don’t be.”

“Just glad that they didn’t manage to hurt the griffon any more,” Pandora frowned. “Than they had done.”

“We saved a creature from captivity,” Mayes nodded, “And we found out something… relevant to your interests,” they nodded to Icarus. “So… It’s a win-win.”

“Could have been worse,” Orion summarized.

“Yeah.”

“Could have been,” Pandora shuddered. “I’m also glad it wasn’t someone that you knew.”

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed.

Orion nodded a bit. “Me too.”

Pandora looked to the others. “We should… Oh, um, we were wondering if it was also possible to see Damen?”

“Um… I… Maybe, I will see.”

“Thanks,” Mayes replied.

“Sorry again,” Icarus offered. “I feel like we just kind of… swooped in, dropped a bad news bomb, and…”

“No, no,” Orion grinned, shaking his head. “No, you’re definitely having it worse, don’t worry about it. Um, right, let me see about Damen, and… Chins up, okay?”

Pandora stopped him before he went. “This is probably really weird… Can I hug you?”

Orion looked at her a bit funny. “...Yeah?”

“Is that okay?”

“...Mhm?”

Pandora threw her arms around his shoulders. His wings folded around her, hugging her back.

She sighed. “I’m really glad I found you.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Sorry if that’s really weird…”

“No,” Orion grinned a bit. “I’ve literally never met another tiefling before.”

“Mhm. Never met any others apart from my mom and my sisters. This is, like, this is really cool!”

A few steps away, Icarus squinted at Orion confusion. “What about your family?”

There was a beat of silence as Orion glanced back over to him.

“Sorry,” Icarus put a hand up. “Wow, that’s… Incredibly inappropriate, huh. Sorry.”

Orion shook his head slightly. “It’s fine, um… Easy assumption,” he scratched at his neck, looking away. “They’re not… not tieflings.”

There was another beat of silence, and Orion cleared his throat. “Uh... Damen. Yeah. This is not the last time we’re gonna talk to each other, okay?”

“Yeah,” Pandora smiled. “I want to talk to you about so many things. Like,  _ so many things!” _

Orion laughed again. “Yes, you should, you should… We should get a drink sometime, the four of us, and talk about it.”

“That would be nice.”

“Sure,” Mayes nodded.

“Cool,” Orion ducked out of the room, heading off to find Damen. He came back ten minutes or so later with a few other gladiators in tow. “Apparently, he’s walked out to go and get a bath,” Orion announced.

Icarus laughed.

“That sounds like him,” Pandora grinned.

Orion chuckled. “And he’s gonna meet us at the bar.”

“That also sounds like him.”

“The Lion of Erran has a brand,” Mayes teased.

“Yeah,” Orion shrugged.

“That’s fair,” Icarus grinned.

“So, if you want to see him, I guess you’re coming with us.”

“Okay,” Pandora sighed.

“I guess we’re going to the bar,” Mayes shrugged.

Icarus chuckled. “I guess those drinks are happening now.”

“It’s not too early for ale,” Pandora reminded him.

“It’s  _ never _ too early.”

With a group of five or six gladiators, the trio headed out of the coliseum. They were all nudging each other, and pushing their buddies into the walls as they walked through the tunnels of the coliseum. If Icarus wasn’t so upset by his current predicament, this would be his dream.

Malachi passed them from the back, looking over his shoulder at them. “Glad to see you’re coming!”

“It happened a lot quicker than I thought it would,” Pandora admitted.

“Yeah, well it’s lunchtime! It’s lunchtime.”

“Is lunchtime the time to go to the bar?”

“Yeah,” Mayes chuckled. “We keep getting roped into these things, don’t we?”

“Yeah… We don’t have any classes today, do we?”

“Uh…”

“I mean, we weren’t due back until today,” Icarus reasoned. “So I doubt it.”

Mayes nodded along. “We could have potentially still been out on the contract, so.”

“Yeah,” Pandora sighed.

The gladiators led them out to the taverna directly next door to the one they had just stopped in for brunch. Icarus waved at the bartender he knew well from his regular tavern, and the server gave him a look of teasing betrayal as the group marched past and into a different building.

The gladiators didn’t bother with a table, heading straight to the bar. There was music playing in the corner, and the gladiators threw a few coins down to the bard. “Play something livelier!” they called. “Play something livelier!”

They ordered reams and reams of food to be laid out, pushing four or five tables together towards the bar.

Mayes shook their head. “We shouldn’t have had lunch before we got here.”

Icarus glanced over at them. “What, you’re not hungry yet?”

“We had food like, literally an hour ago,” Pandora chided.

Mayes shook their head in disbelief. “How do you do that?”

Icarus looked between them. “What?”

“How do you  _ do _ that?”

“...Eat?”

“You’re a bottomless pit, dude!”

Icarus laughed. “You’ve got no idea.”

They grabbed a seat, the gladiators sitting around them. They were served goblets of wine, having ale pushed towards them while the gladiators chatted amongst themselves and told them anecdotes from the arena, telling them about things they speculated, shows they wanted to plan, and ideas they had that didn’t quite pass health and safety yet. Icarus was much more his performative self now, and a bit less of the version the other two students had gotten to know over the past few days.

After awhile, there was a cheer from the group as Damen appeared in the doorway. He was limping slightly, and not quite looking himself, but much like Icarus, he managed to put on a good performance. He still had a few bandaged wounds and bruises.

He nodded to them. “Oh, my saviors...”

“Hey,” Mayes grinned.

“Hi,” Pandora smiled.

Damen looked them over. “You three just keep popping up all over the place, don’t you?”

“We got invited,” Icarus defended.

“Yeah,” Mayes nodded.

Damen raised a suspicious brow. “Okay…”

Icarus grinned. “We did!”

“We did,” Mayes echoed.

“Orion!”

“We did,” Pandora followed. “We came to see Orion.”

“I invited them,” Orion waved Damen down. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Yeah,” Icarus teased. “We came for Orion, not you.”

“We did!” Pandora persisted.

Damen chuckled, turning a chair around to sit on it backwards at the table.

Pandora moved to make room. “You were a happy side effect of the whole thing.”

“Yeah,” Mayes reasoned. “We just wanted to see if you were okay, since we were in the area anyway.”

“How are you doing?”

Damen pursued his lips. “Yeah, I’m fine, absolutely fine.”

“Mhm,” Pandora tilted her head. “Really?”

“With the limp?” Mayes pressed.

Icarus lightly nudged the leg Damen had been limping with under the table.

Damen looked a bit teasingly offended, and then relented. “Okay…”

“Totally fine,” Icarus grinned.

“You’re playing with fire there, Icarus,” Mayes warned.

“I’ve lived with Lorakai.”

“I will maul you,” Damen threatened.

Pandora laughed. “I don’t disbelieve him.”

Icarus shrugged with a grin. “You’d have to catch me first. And I don’t think you’re doing anything,” he gestured to the injured leg again.

Damen pointed two fingers to his eyes, and then Icarus’s. “I have my ways.”

Sitting back in the chair with a groan, Damen reached for a goblet. Filling it all the way to the top with wine, he drained it before filling again, sitting it on the table next to him.

“So you’re going to take some time off?” Pandora guessed.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be a couple of weeks,” Damen frowned. “Until I’m, um, fighting fit enough.”

“Yeah I think that’s a good idea,” Icarus approved.

“I can’t thank you enough, I’ve already heard… Um, how have you been?”

“Wait, what have you heard?”

Damen waved a hand. “Oh, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

Three faces frowned.

“No, you don’t get to get away with that easy,” Pandora teased.

“We don’t trust like that, Damen,” Mayes grinned.

“No. What have you heard?”

“No, it’s not something I can talk to you about!” Damen defended.

“What’s that mean?”

“...It’s a thing that I’m not allowed to talk to you about!”

“From who?!”

“...From nobody!”

Icarus laughed.

“Who’s nobody?” Mayes probed.

Pandora nudged his leg.

“Ow!” Damen pulled the leg away. “That’s not convincing me to talk about it!”

The three students stared into him.

“Don’t be giving me that look,” he chided.

“Come on,” Mayes pressed.

“Nope,” Damen put a hand up, blocking them from view. “You’re not even here.”

“Your three… your three saviors? Your three favorite Delphos students?” Mayes needled.

“No, it’s fine,” Icarus grinned. “If he doesn’t want to talk to us…”

“What’s a Delphos?” Damen wondered, making a show of looking around in confusion. “Never heard of it.”

“Uh huh,” Mayes grinned.

Icarus rolled his eyes. “It’s a school.”

Damen shrugged. “What’s a school?”

“Never heard of that either?” Mayes teased.

“Never heard of it.”

Pandora grinned. “Never once.”

Mayes relented, and moved on. “We’re fine, we just came back from a contract.”

“Oh?” Damen prompted.

“Yeah. Kelpies.”

“Kelpies?”

“And a…” Icarus squinted, “Demon?”

“Yeah,” Mayes frowned.

“Ugh,” Pandora shuddered. “She was awful.”

“She was.”

Icarus leaned on his palm. “She was hot…”

Mayes pointed a finger at him in warning.

“What?”

Mayes tapped Icarus’s forehead. “She nearly got you.”

“Yeah, I know! That was awful, but… You can  _ appreciate _ …”

“You shouldn’t.”

“...Yeah, but you  _ could…” _

Damen nodded in approval. “I would go for a demon if they were hot.”

“Right?”

Pandora rolled her eyes. “Ugh…”

“I don’t even see why you two need to be in school,” Damen continued. “Sounds like you got your shit together already.”

“We’ve got to pass the exams first,” Mayes replied.

“Or you could just  _ not. _ If it doesn’t give you anything else.”

Pandora frowned. “And waste all that time we’ve been studying?”

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed.

Damen shrugged. “You still know the stuff, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Pandora conceded, “But we don’t have the… certificate at the end, to say that we do know it.”

_ “Certificate at the end, _ I’ve never had a certificate in anything in my life.”

“Well look at all your trophies,” Pandora pressed. “Mister gladiator man.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Mayes nodded. “If they didn’t give you the trophy, where’s the evidence?”

“Exactly,” Pandora nodded.

“Hmm…” Damen thought, growing a goofy grin. “In my heart,” he proclaimed.

“Yeah, that’s for you to know, and then no one else will know.”

“If it was all in your heart, you wouldn’t be The Lion of Erran, would you?” Mayes teased.

“No.”

“Alright,” Damen relented, leaning back.

Mayes turned to the others, chuckling. “Are we just bullying this poor injured guy right now?”

“He’s making it very easy,” Pandora replied.

“He’s making it really easy…”

Malachi called over from the other side of the table. “Keep going! This is fun!”

Mayes laughed. “Do you guys not get to do this with him?”

“Eh, yeah, we like to bully him a lot.”

Pandora looked around at the group of gladiators. “I feel like they do it with each other, just… generally.”

“Oh, it’s just banter, yeah,” Mayes shrugged.

“Damen is a particularly easy target,” Malachi grinned.

“Yeah, he’s a big softie.”

Damen crossed his arms. “Shut up! No I’m not.”

Mayes chuckled again. “Yeah you are.”

“Speaking of big softie,” Icarus continued, “How’s your little one getting on?”

“Yeah, how’s Panos?” Pandora smiled.

Damen nodded. “He’s good. Yeah.”

“Good,” Icarus grinned.

“Back with his mom. Won’t see him for a while, but, he’s good.”

“How often do you see him?” Pandora wondered.

“Hm, maybe… Once a month? It’s fine, my lifestyle doesn’t really… you know…”

“I mean, he was loving it,” Icarus smiled.

“Yeah, he was excited,” Mayes nodded.

Damen shrugged. “Yeah, his mom doesn’t like him going to see too many of those shows, ‘cuz it’s  _ too violent.” _

Mayes tilted their head from side to side, considering.

“I mean, there’s hundreds of kids in the audience,” Damen defended. “But…”

“And it’s not real,” Icarus added.

Damen glanced over. “...Well some of it’s real.”

“No, you know what I mean, it’s not like you’re actually killing things.”

“...Well… Yeah, sometimes…”

“Well, it’s constructs, usually?”

“I mean,” Mayes shrugged, “We actually killed something…”

“Yeah but, come on, you know what I mean. They’re not killing each other…”

“She’s particularly mad at me,” Damen frowned, “...because of that. Like it’s my fault, somehow.”

“Well I guess it can’t be great for a kid to see their dad beat up like that,” Pandora mediated.

Damen looked away. “...No. Bit embarrassing.”

“No, like… in the sense that he’d be worried about you. Not that he would think any less of you.”

Damen nodded. “He’s a tough kid. He won’t worry too much.”

“He’s sweet,” Pandora smiled.

“Yeah… Oh, any more weird dreams?”

“No, no,” Icarus assured him.

“Thankfully no,” Pandora agreed. “Well, I mean, not like…” she pointed to them all, “ _ That _ sort of weird dream, anyway.”

Icarus glanced over in suspicion. “Wait, are you having weird dreams?”

Pandora paused for a moment. “...No…”

Mayes grinned. “That was a very- ”

“That sounded very much like my no earlier,” Damen teased.

“Nothing,” Pandora defended. “Like… Everyone has weird dreams.”

“Okay,” Icarus conceded. “But like, we’ve been having  _ weird _ dreams.”

“Okay, but like, not that sort of weird dream- ”

“Normal weird dreams,” Mayes supplied.

“Normal weird dreams,” Pandora agreed. “We’re allowed to have normal weird dreams!”

“I don’t know anymore,” Icarus laughed.

“I feel like as long as you guys aren’t in my dream, it’s fine to have that dream.”

“Wow,” Icarus grinned.

“No offense!”

“No, I completely agree,” Damen chuckled. “If I don’t see you three when I’m sleeping, that’s great for me.”

“Right?”

Icarus turned away in mock offense, looking over to Mayes. “I wouldn’t be offended if you were in my dreams. Just so you know.”

“Wow,” Damen teased. “That’s cute.”

Mayes appraised the triton. “...I don’t know how to feel about that, Icarus.”

He put his hands up. “Okay! Trying to be nice...”

The table laughed.

“Look, I mean that in the nicest possible way,” Pandora explained. “But... stay out of my dreams.”

“Yeah, that goes for you three too,” Damen agreed. “Now, Tadpole,” he snapped at Icarus. “Your round.”

Icarus blinked. “Uh…”

“You got money?” Pandora wondered.

“...Nope. How much is a round?”

Damen chuckled. “Like, two silver?”

Icarus picked through his change. He only had a handful of coins left. “Okay! I can get it.”

Damen shrugged. “I figured you could afford it, seeing as you got all the drinks last time too…”

Mayes leaned over to the triton with a grin. “You did do that…”

Icarus put a hand on his forehead. “Yeah, I know…”

He went over to the bar for the drinks. Trying to pay, the bartender shooed him off. “No, we’ve got a tab on The Maw. Don’t worry about it!”

Icarus blinked, turning around to look at the table. Damen was giving him the dirtiest grin, chuckling mischievously to himself.

  
  


They drank on through the afternoon, getting themselves comfortably tipsy. Eventually, the gladiators pried themselves out of their chairs. “Okay, we really have to go back to training… They’re gonna start paying for staff if we spend all day drinking and not working out, so…”

They said their goodbyes, and the students wished them well as they left. Orion gave Pandora another hug, wrapping the other two in as well with his wings before folding them away. If they hadn’t seen him at the coliseum, nobody would know his secret.

“We should… I know we didn’t get to talk all that much,” Pandora revised, “Maybe another time?”

“Another time would be great,” Orion grinned.

“Yeah!”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Alright, I will see you then.”

He helped Damen back across to the coliseum.

Icarus looked between Orion and Pandora suspiciously, trying to judge if it was just tiefling excitement or if the spark of romance was in the air.

He was not subtle about it, and Pandora noticed instantly. “What?”

“Hm?”

“What?!”

In the distance, Orion waved.

Pandora waved back. “Bye!”

Icarus looked at Pandora’s back. “Do you have wings?”

“No!” Pandora stepped back. “That’s kind of rude to ask…”

“I was just asking because… he keeps them hidden, and…”

“Yeah, so?”

“I didn’t know if it was a tiefling thing.”

“It is for some tieflings, not for all.”

“Huh… You were the first tiefling I’ve ever met…”

“Okay?”

“I had no idea!”

“Well, some tieflings have wings, some don’t. Some have, like, fangs? Or some don’t… Or at least, so I understand.”

“You are kind of a little bit different,” Mayes nodded. “Depending on ancestry, right?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s so cool,” Icarus whispered.

“Yeah, like…”

“Tieflings are so cool!”

“Yeah,” Mayes smiled.

Pandora shrugged. “Like, I’ve never met another tiefling before, I’m sorry if this is like, weird for you guys, but this is really cool for me…”

“No no no!” Icarus grinned. “No no… No, it is cool. So what are your sisters like?”

“They’re kind of like me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“And you said, your mom…?”

“Yeah. We were all kind of similar.”

“It’s interesting,” Mayes nodded. “I’ve not met- This is a lot of, sort of, I guess… Races, and types of folk that I didn’t really meet until coming to the mainland, so.”

“And I’m sure there’s a bunch that we don’t really have in Erran at all.”

“Yeah,” Icarus considered.

“Yeah, to be fair,” Mayes agreed. “Pretty goblinoid dense.”

Pandora chuckled. “Yeah. We should really be getting back.”

“I guess.”

It was now late afternoon, and any classes that they would have had were long over by now.

“We need to find out about the second task,” Pandora frowned.

“If they’ll tell us anything,” Mayes countered.

“And then the written exam, we could be revising for as well.”

“Yeah…”

“Yeah,” Icarus sighed.

“I guess, maybe we should all go back and have a little study evening or something. I need to look at that knife and those boots.”

“Yeah, you do,” Pandora remembered.

“Yeah.”

“See what shiny things you got out of them.”

“Yeah, just take a look, see what’s going on.”

They made their way back to the Academy, chatting amongst themselves. Icarus felt a bit lighter than he had earlier. They walked up the steps, talking about what they needed to study, planning visits to the library, and discussing the items they had recovered on their trip.

As soon as they got inside, they saw Citra marching straight up to the door. “There you are.”

“Hi,” Pandora greeted.

Mayes straightened. “Hey.”

“The three of you come with me please,” she urged.

Pandora looked up at her with concern. “What have we done?”

“You haven’t done anything, just, just… Don’t worry about that, just come with me, please.”

Pandora worried anyway.

Citra had quite a grim expression on her face as she turned to lead them away.

“If anything, it’s maybe something I've done,” Mayes shrugged to the others. “I mean, she’s my mentor.”

Pandora was not convinced. “Yeah but, we all need to go…”

“Well, okay… Just don’t worry about it. Citra’s fine.”

As they followed her across the courtyard and through one of the corridors of the school, she didn’t say anything else. She led them to a quiet practice room in one of the back buildings, a space with one large mirrored wall.

Inside was Domina Octavia. She waited silently, half sat on one of the tables, simply observing. Alexander was there, as well as Aurello, one of Pandora’s past professors of the necromantic arts. Aurello was a tall hobgoblin, well over six feet, with a short dark beard styled into a point, and dark hair neatly plaited all the way down his back. He had quite a strict demeanor, and Pandora knew that he rarely smiled, always quite serious about his work. He was wearing a dark palla, with a green crystal as his arcane focus hung around his neck.

Pandora approached in surprise. “Aurello?”

Citra stopped inside the room, turning back to Mayes. “Are you okay?”

Mayes looked around, confused. “Yeah?”

“Yeah? The three of you okay after your contract?”

“Yeah,” Icarus nodded.

“As well as can be,” Pandora followed.

“Yeah, it went well. We got everything done that we could.”

“Exactly,” Mayes agreed.

Citra gave a curt nod. “Good. I will hand you over to Master Escholme, then.”

She went to stand with Octavia.

Alexander stepped forward with a sigh. “Sorry to spring this on the three of you like this. Um…”

“What’s going on?” Pandora worried.

“We’re here to talk about… what you saw, with your invisibility spell.”

Mayes looked down.

“Um… We’ve been discussing,” Alexander continued, “And looking into it, over the last couple of days, while you’ve been away from the school. And… I believe I have found a way, to...”

Icarus put a hand on Mayes shoulder. Mayes frowned a bit at it, and continued to stare at the ground.

Alexander watched them carefully. “...Citra has explained to me that you’re… not entirely convinced?”

Mayes shrugged, and Icarus retracted the hand. “I just… I don’t understand how that could be a thing.”

“Well, I think I’ve found a way to… prove it, or disprove it. So at least… we can dismiss the thought entirely and say that perhaps it was something… strange to do with the labyrinth itself, or… we can prove it, and see where to go from there.”

Pandora looked tentatively over to Mayes. “I… promise, I wouldn’t have lied. I… I just… told you what I saw. And I don’t want to upset you though, Mayes.”

“It is what it is,” Mayes replied, their voice flat. “Just… do what you want to do.”

“You are willing to proceed?” Alexander confirmed.

They shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Pandora, would you help me?”

She blushed a bit. “Of course.”

“Okay…” he explained that he needed help setting out a glyph on the floor of the classroom. All of the tables had already been moved back into corners, and over the next fifteen minutes, he handed her components and gave her guidance on where to mark a ten foot radius, filled with symbols of divination and warding. Pandora followed his instructions to the letter.

Apart from the quiet conversation between the two of them as they set up the floor, there was a tense silence over the room. Icarus stood near Mayes, one arm against theirs in quiet support. Mayes wasn’t really reacting.

Once they finished, Alexander thanked Pandora for her help, and asked her to step aside. Lighting a few candles around it, he double checked something with Aurello, and then asked, “Mayes, would you please step onto the glyph?”

“Yeah,” they agreed. As they did, magic shimmered around them. A few moments passed with nothing happening at all, before slowly, they started to see the faint, ethereal shapes of limbs wrapped around their shoulder and neck, clutching at their chest as the same figure formed over Mayes’ back. It was now revealed by this glyph to the entire room.

“That’s it, that’s what I saw, that’s it,” Pandora gulped.

Mayes turned their head, and found themself immediately making eye contact with two dark, sullen eyes, staring out of a pale face with an emotionless expression. Looking across the room at the large mirror, they could see the creature dangling off their shoulders. Where its body should stretch down to the floor, they saw torn, half eaten flesh, and entrails hanging down in place of lower limbs.

They recognized what scraps of clothing appeared to remain on it as clothing from their hometown in Vishima.

There was a tense silence in the room as Mayes realized that everyone could see it. All the color from Mayes’ face was gone as they stared in complete disbelief at the figure in the mirror.

They swallowed heavily. “Okay, so what now?”

Aurello stepped forwards to take a closer look, walking the edge of the glyph. “This is… interesting. I’ve not seen anything like this before personally, in my career.”

“Do you think you can detach it?” Pandora implored.

“I can try…” The professor addressed the spirit. “Can you hear us?”

It didn’t seem to respond, but it definitely seemed to have noticed that it was being looked at. It turned its head to look at the different people in the room, as it had with Pandora in the labyrinth, but it didn’t make any sort of movement of recognition that it could hear what was being said.

Mayes examined the face, but it wasn’t anyone they recognized, though they could tell it was someone native to their area.

Aurello tested a few things, and then stood back, stroking his beard. “I would believe… the reason the creature can’t be communicated with, or seen by the naked eye, is it exists only in the Ethereal Plane.”

“Okay...” Pandora frowned.

“I would… There’s a couple of things I can think to suggest. I would first suggest we perhaps try and remove it as though it’s a curse, just in case.”

“I can… I can do that,” Pandora offered.

Alexander nodded to her. “I think that’d be a good idea. If, Mayes, you would be comfortable with your friend trying?”

Mayes looked to the floor. “Yeah, sure.”

“You can step onto the glyph,” Alexander explained to Pandora. “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt you.”

“Okay,” Pandora stepped into the circle and onto the glyph in front of Mayes. “Mayes, I need to touch you to do this, is that okay?”

“Yeah,” they shrugged. “Just do it.”

“It’s not going to hurt.”

“I know.”

Pandora held her hands on either side of Mayes’ face. Closing her eyes, she muttered the incantation, sending out a wave of energy. A shimmer of green light expelled from Pandora’s hands for a second, washing over Mayes. When everyone’s eyes readjusted to the darkened room, the spirit was still there.

“Okay…”

“Right,” Aurello stroked his beard. “I didn’t imagine that would be the case, but it was worth trying, just in case it was something. We can perhaps try to dispel it, as would be the case in spiritual possession.”

“I don’t believe I’m confident on that one,” Pandora apologized.

“It’s okay, I can carry that one out.” Aurello glanced to Mayes again. “If you would be comfortable?”

“I don’t care what you do,” Mayes sighed. “Just… just do it.”

“Okay.”

Aurello took out a small flask of holy water, pouring it over his hands before mixing it with powered silver. Muttering incantations to himself, he reached out to touch Mayes on the shoulder. There was again, another flash of light, this time brighter with sparks of white and blue.

As it came down, the spirit was still there.

“Does it need to be banished?” Pandora suggested. “Or...?”

Aurello frowned. “I am more concerned about that… I am not sure how to proceed here. If this spirit- and I am sure it is one- is not cursing or possessing Mayes…”

“Then it’s just existing,” Icarus offered.

“There’s a deeper cause for it.”

“I’m… I’m fine,” Mayes persisted. “Like, there’s not… I couldn’t put a pin on when something like this would have happened to me, but I’ve always been fine.”

“How long have your shoulders been hurting?” Icarus pressed.

Mayes shook their head in slight annoyance. “How do you remember something like that, Icarus?”

“I don’t know…”

“Take your time,” Pandora tried to reassure Mayes. “It’s okay.”

Mayes rubbed their face with their hands, taking a deep sigh.

“I… I can try something,” Icarus considered. “Maybe?”

Aurello stepped back. “If there’s something you think you can try, please go ahead.”

Icarus pulled out the holy symbol of Kord, stepping up behind Mayes. Holding the symbol up against the back of the attached spirit, he quietly prayed to Kord, asking for the spirit to release Mayes and go on with its life.

The familiar surge of divine energy he garnered from Kord moved through his body as it had in the labyrinth, when he had invoked Kord’s name to rid himself of the undead skeletons. Light wrapped again over the spirit, but it didn’t move.

Mayes saw the phantom arms tighten around them, the pain worsening in their shoulders.

They cringed, “Can you… can we leave this?”

Icarus backed away. “Sorry! Sorry…”

“Okay, okay,” Pandora agreed.

None of the spells seemed to be hurting it in any way, but the spirit was watching them, studying them, its eyes widening as they moved. It was definitely aware of them.

“See, this…” Aurello frowned, “The problem… is that whilst ghosts can usually only affect people whilst they’re on the material plane, or someone is on the ethereal plane… This appears to be… a permanent connection between the two. With Mayes on the material plane, and this spirit… not. Perhaps in the border ethereal, as it stays put on Mayes. If you could walk around the glyph?”

Mayes gave another half shrug. “Yeah.”

They walked around a bit. The spirit stayed firmly put.

“Could it become dangerous to Mayes?” Pandora worried. “Like, cause any detrimental effects to them?”

“I’ve…” Mayes shook their head. “I’ve been off of Vishima for like, what, six years now? I’ve had it that long, it’s… it’s obviously one of ours.”

“Like, do you know… You mentioned that there’s a lot of ghost stories in Vishima?”

“Yeah, we have  _ ghost stories, _ we have monster stories, we have all sorts of cautionary tales to keep people safe, and…”

“Anything like this?”

“They’re just stories, Pandora!”

“I’m just trying to help you…”

“It’s just warnings,” Mayes rubbed their face again, exasperated.  _ “Don’t go out in the woods…” _

“One of the most prominent understandings about spirits,” Aurello continued, “Is that spirits left in the ethereal plane often have unfinished business. They won’t pass over. If we could communicate with it, we could find out what it wanted. But, in order to do that, I believe you’d have to enter the ethereal plane. It’s not a magic that I think anybody at this school knows how to do.”

“Yeah,” Pandora gulped. “That’s really advanced level magic…”

“Then I guess you can… have a think about that,” Mayes frowned.

Octavia, who had been silently watching, observing the scene, stood up straight. They heard the click of her heels as she crossed over to the glyph. “I do know somebody you can speak to.”

Pandora looked up with interest. “Oh?”

“As it stands, I consider this… of utmost importance. Whilst you say it hasn't been causing you problems, you cannot say that for sure. And… I think we should arrange for you to go and see my contact. There’s a man living in the hills southeast at the town of Eras Minorix, who is said to be able to see permanently into the ethereal plane. I think if anyone was to have more information, it would be him. His name is Kalifna. He is not an ally, nor an enemy of Erran, but could be perhaps convinced to lend his knowledge to you, in this case.”

“Okay…”

“He can be found in a clearing on the top of one of the hills, marked by a large stone obelisk. This town is quite a journey, I need you to understand. It’s over a hundred miles. But, considering how pressing this could be, I am both concerned that Mayes could be in danger, or your school.”

She pursued her lips, looking at them decisively. “I will not be allowing the three of you to continue your exams until this is resolved.”

Pandora and Icarus stared up at her, sputtering as their jaws dropped.

“Understand?”

The pair quickly looked obediently down, silencing themselves.

“Understood,” Icarus replied.

“Okay,” Pandora followed.

Mayes was silent.

“We can arrange transport to Eras Minorix tomorrow, on a ship, in order to get you there quickly. We’ll provide you a small budget to care for yourselves.”

Icarus nodded. “This is… more than agreeable. Anything to help Mayes.”

Octavia eyed the remaining student. “Hasagawa?”

Another shrug. “Sure,” they muttered, still looking to the floor.

“I need you to take this issue seriously.”

“Sure,” they repeated, a fraction louder.

“We’ll do what we can,” Icarus assured her.

Octavia nodded. “Good. In which case, I think there is nothing else we can do right now. Let us arrange that transport for you, and the three of you should get a good night’s sleep.”

“We will.”

“For the time being, probably best that you don’t spread this information to anybody else in the school.”

“No.”

“No,” Pandora followed.

“While we have you here,” Icarus wondered, “Have you heard anything more about that figure? On the roof, that we asked one of the other tutors about?”

“...Master Auron did pass on the information,” she informed them. “We have someone looking into it.”

“Okay.”

“If there’s anything we think you need to know, we’ll let you know.”

Icarus nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

“The three of you are dismissed.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Pandora echoed.

Mayes bowed their head silently, and Octavia left the room, Aurello in tow. Alexander dismissed the glyph, and the spirit disappeared.

Citra walked over, placing a hand on Mayes’ arm.

Mayes didn’t look up at her. “We should go sleep.”

“...You know where I am if you need anything.”

“I know,” Mayes replied. There was a beat of silence before they offered more. “Appreciate it.”

“That goes for all of you,” Citra looked at the other two.

Pandora nodded. “You’re not on your own in this, Mayes.”

Mayes shifted around, still refusing eye contact. “That’s… besides the point.”

“What is the point?”

They shook their head. “Doesn’t matter. We should go sleep.”

“...Okay.”

Alexander busied himself tidying up the room. Pandora assisted, and he thanked her for the help. As he was close to finishing, he waved her off. “Go, go. Rest.”

“Okay,” she relented.

“And don’t worry about your exams. You’ll be back on them before long.”

“Yeah, I’m not worried about that,” Icarus grinned.

Alexander squeezed Pandora’s shoulder. “Off you go.”

“Okay,” she turned.

Icarus bumped his arm into Mayes. “Come on.”

The three of them headed back out into the courtyard.

“I don’t know about you guys,” Icarus declared, “But I need a bath.”

They did still smell like horse.

“Yeah, that’d be nice,” Pandora agreed.

“Come on,” Icarus nudged Mayes again. “It might… loosen you up a bit.”

Mayes was still watching the ground, but they relented. “...Okay.”

“Out of your head,” Icarus advised. “I was in my head earlier and that sucked, so.”

Mayes rubbed their face again. “I’m fine, just…”

“Yeah, I know you’re fine. So let’s go, bathe… relax.”

_ “Okay, _ Icarus.”

He chuckled, leading the group over to the school bathhouse. It was a long room, with two or three different baths, and nice cream stone floors that looked somewhat marble, with columns around it. The sound of constant running water rang through the baths, keeping them nice and fresh. Shelves of different scented oils were arranged around them. There was nothing too luxury, but there was enough for them to have a relaxing experience.

It was getting quite late, and the building was thankfully empty. They had the large room to themselves.

They slid into the hot water, dropping in a few oils that foamed slightly. Peeling off sweaty clothes, Icarus’s fins puffed out into the water as he sunk to the bottom with a wide smile.

Mayes angrily practiced holding their breath, a stream of frustrated bubbles floating upwards.

Icarus sat near them with a grin. “You’re doing really well, you know?”

Mayes didn’t answer, giving him a bit of a look.

  
Pandora kicked at the water before getting in. “Get above the water so I can see where your eyes are!” she warned.

The top half of Icarus’s face breached the surface. “They’re here,” he announced, turning around to face away from her.

Pandora carefully climbed in the water, taking off her towel.

“I wasn’t gonna look at you!” he defended.

“Well I don’t know!” Pandora retorted.

“I just like being in the water!”

Icarus floated on his back, breathing happily through his gills as Pandora began applying some of the oils to her skin, and scraping them off to clean herself.

They could see the triton’s scar now, which ran from one shoulder diagonally across and through his right set of gills, which were a bit shredded at his hip. It was big, it was gnarly, and it was old. But he looked happy in the water.

“No kelpies here,” Icarus sighed.

“Please,” Pandora agreed.

“No, no, no…”

“No kelpies here.”

Icarus splashed Mayes. They didn’t react.

“Come on,” he grinned. “You’re at like, two minutes.”

Mayes slowly surfaced, giving them another look as their eyes breached, but keeping their nose and mouth sufficiently and stubbornly submerged. They weren’t in the mood for talking.

Icarus didn’t mind. He would talk  _ at _ them.

They stewed in the bath for awhile before saying their farewells, and heading back to their separate dorms.

Mayes returned to their room, sitting down for a moment to decompress slightly before taking out the dagger. They worked on it for a bit, but it was getting annoying to clean, so they moved on to the boots. Studying them for a bit, they determined they were Boots of Elvenkind. Wearing them, their steps would make no sound regardless of the surface they were moving across.

Eventually, they were able to tediously clean off all the rust and blackened metal on the dagger with the whetstone. They came to realize that the dagger was definitely a relic from prehistory. They had all had to take a history course at Delphos, and this predated all they had studied, though they recognized a few shapes in the carvings attributed to prehistoric cultures. The dagger was certainly magical. The user could cast a spell, and when using the dagger, the weapon would replicate the effects of that spell. If the user cast a fire spell, for example, the dagger would burn the next enemy.

Mayes held it for a moment, taking it in. “Pandora is gonna love you.”

They put it to the side, and spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out when the spirit could have attached to them. They were quite angry.

Focusing their mind, they tried to hone in on their memories of Vishima. They could only pick up one small flicker of time where they were uncertain of what had been happening around them, a time they weren’t particularly clear on right before they left Vishima. But the contents of what they weren’t clear on were impossible, and they couldn’t even wrap their head around what exactly it was that they didn’t know. There was just the frustrating sensation that there was a very small gap, and whilst they didn’t remember every little thing that happened every day, there was a point they remembered  _ not _ remembering. It had frustrated them before, but they seemed to have let it slip from their mind since then.

They tried their best to sleep.

Pandora sat in her room, thinking over the last few days, her dreams, and what Avra had said. She missed her family.

She sat in her bed with Puck on her shoulder, looking at portraits of her sisters and her parents. After a moment, she sent out a spell.

_ “Hey Dad. It’s Dora. Got accepted for final exams. First one down, went well. I have a great team. ...Love you. Miss you so much.” _

Her voice started to break on the last few words. There was a moment of silence, and then she heard her father’s voice return in her head.

_ “Dora honey, I’m so proud of you. I can’t wait to tell your sisters, my darling. If you need anything, let your old dad know.” _

Pandora sat in bed and cried for a while. She missed him desperately. Eventually, she fell asleep.

Icarus did his best to avoid Lorakai, walking straight to his dorm and diving under the covers to hide.

The three of them got to sleep eventually, and thankfully, dreamlessly.

  
  


Morning rolled around. Icarus woke early to go for his run. He saw Lorakai in a corridor and quickly turned around.

He went for his run, and noticed someone up on the roof fixing some of the tiles.

Heading back inside, he saw Lorakai again in a different building.  _ “What’s he doing up this early?” _ Icarus thought frantically to himself as he power walked away.  _ “It’s half five, go to bed old man!” _

Icarus thought he had escaped him for a second, and then heard a familiar voice.

“Icarus!”

_ “Shit,” _ Icarus whispered, turning around. “Hi!”

“I didn’t see you yesterday when you got back.”

“...Lot was happening, sorry. You know, got caught up with Mayes’... thing?”

“...Okay?”

Icarus flashed him a thumbs up. “Went well!”

“Good. You seem… chipper.”

“I’m always chipper,” Icarus replied, a bit too quickly.

“Hmm…” Lorakai looked him up and down. “Everything okay?”

Icarus fidgeted a bit. “Yeah…”

“Okay… You want to join me for breakfast?”

Icarus flicked his eyes around, looking for an escape. “Ah… we’re getting a boat today, so I’m not sure what time that’s gonna be, but… Yeah, yeah.”

“Yeah? You don’t have to, if you got plans with your friends I understand.”

“No, no no no no no, it’s, it’s fine, no. Uh, sure.”

“...You’re being very weird.”

“Tired!” He defended. “Didn’t sleep well.”

“Well why are you up this early?”

“Habit.”

“Uh huh.”

“Uh huh!”

Lorakai knocked him in the head, teasing.

“Agh!” Icarus grinned. “Why are  _ you _ up so early? You’re never up this early.”

“Because I was hoping I’d catch you when you went for your morning run. It worked.”

Icarus nodded, still fidgeting a bit. “You’re paying for breakfast, I don’t have money.”

“...I was gonna make breakfast?”

“Oh, okay.”

“In the apartment?”

Icarus was quite frazzled. “Okay, lead the way!”

Lorakai led him to the set of rooms that he lived in, where Icarus had stayed with him for a couple of years before he had joined the school. It was a small space (though certainly bigger than Damen’s), with a main bedroom, a second bedroom for Icarus, a long living area with a kitchen, and a bathroom. He opened the door, letting himself in without waiting for Icarus. It all felt quite familiar as he started making breakfast.

While he did, Lorakai began grilling him on the contract. “So how was it?”

“Yeah, it was good. We uh… came across… a demon? Of some kind?”

“What?”

“Yeah…”

“...Okay? You gonna tell me more about that, or…?”

“Sure, she… potentially- ”

“She?” Lorakai grinned.

Icarus shook his head.  _ “Yes. _ She potentially killed a, or, got rid of, a… temple… person? That was going over to that town… from here? And inserted herself in, as a… ”

Lorakai turned, laughing at him. “A  _ temple person? _ Are you sure you’re okay?”

Icarus looked away, trying to keep a straight face. “I’m fine…”

“A  _ temple person?” _

“Cleric!” Icarus revised. “Yeah… Kinda frazzled. Um. She put, uh... She. Confused. Me? Controlled me for a little- Listen, everything was a lot- ”

“She confused you?” Lorakai grinned wider.

“Yeah…”

“Is there something you need to talk about?”

“No… It’s all good.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, no…”

“‘Cuz we can have that kind of conversation if you need it, but you’re a bit old. I kind of figured that- ”

“I’m not that kind of confused!” Icarus laughed nervously. “She put a spell on me!”

“Oh! See, you need to be more clear about these things…”

Icarus leaned forward, incredulous. “You think I need to have that…?”

“Well, you’re blushing!” Lorakai defended.

“...Yeah! ‘Cuz this is a very weird conversation right now!” Icarus blushed harder, flustered as he tried to reel himself in. “It’s fine, it was kelpies, okay?”

Lorakai blinked. “What, the demon?”

“No! The demon was, this…! Kelpies were what were in…” Icarus scrambled for the name, “Ithia!”

“Okay,” Lorakai waved a hand, chuckling as he tried to calm him down. “I’m putting you on the spot, I know I’m making this worse for you. Sit down, have a tea.”

Icarus gave a grateful sigh. “Yeah, okay…”

“I feel like the demon is kind of a big problem,” Lorakai frowned.

“That’s what I thought too. Mayes might have made a deal…”

He blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

Icarus was still laughing nervously. Mayes would not have wanted him to say that, but he couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out. “Yeah, we tried to stop them but… they shook… her hand? So…”

“...Okay… Okay. I’m sure that will be detailed into your report on the contract.”

“No… Because we will deal with it,” Icarus reasoned.

“Is this being casually left out?” Lorakai raised a brow. “Like you casually not telling anybody you got into a fight with those students?”

Icarus pursued his lips, looking away.

“It’s a bad habit, Icarus. Which is why I wanted to find you this morning. I know exactly who you go into a fight with. You can’t keep these things from me.”

“I told you it wasn’t important.”

“It’s important to me. As your guardian, I don’t want you getting in fights, let alone with other students. Especially not in the streets, okay?”

“I know. I didn’t mean for it to be anything, it just…”

Lorakai frowned. “There’s something dangerous happening in Erran, and I don’t know what it is.”

“What do you mean?”

Lorakai leaned forward. “This is completely confidential, okay?”

“...Okay.”

He sighed. “When we came back from the labyrinth, a student was brought into the infirmary.”

“...Yeah, with a shield around so no one could see?”

“They were not in a good state. And… couldn’t explain why. Something had happened to them, somewhere in the streets of Erran. I want you to be  _ incredibly _ careful, okay? I don’t want anything happening to you. I don’t want to lose you, I don’t want you to get hurt. I’m glad that you’re heading out of the city again, because...”

“Because why?”

“Because I don’t know what’s going on. And I don’t like that.”

Icarus scratched his head, pushing back his hair. “Yeah, it seems like a lot of stuff is happening right now, huh.”

“That’s the way of things. But unfortunately, it seems like a lot of stuff happening right now, you’re getting caught up in. And this is one thing I don’t want you getting caught up in.” Lorakai broke eye contact, looking up at the ceiling. “You’re an adult now, and I can’t protect you in the same way I could. So I have to trust you to be making responsible choices, and looking after yourself. When I can’t be there.”

Icarus offered a comforting smile. “You know I will.”

Lorakai turned to face him, imploring. “And you won’t keep anything else from me, yeah? ...Please?”

Icarus froze for half a second, keeping the smile plastered on as he stared back. “...Sure.”

“Okay. Eat your breakfast.”

Lorakai seemed to cheer up after that, but Icarus was sweating. Lorakai continued to idly chat about the lessons he was planning, completely distracted from their earlier conversation.

Lorakai finished up breakfast. “Right, I’ve got to get to lessons. And you have a boat to catch.”

“Yeah.”

“So- Hang on...” he passed over ten gold coins.

“Thanks!” Icarus brightened.

“Don’t tell anyone I’m giving you this, okay? Everyone’s gonna want an allowance from their mentors,” he grinned.

“I think that’s…” Icarus smiled down at the coins, sighing as he trailed off. “Can I have a hug?”

“Yeah, always. I thought you didn’t want to do hugs anymore,” he teased.

Icarus chuckled. “Shut up.”

Lorakai wrapped him a big hug, and then headed off to class. Icarus was left standing in the room where he had grown up for the past several years, looking around with a sigh.

  
  


Mayes got up around six, and went out for a long walk, thinking things over and coming to decisions. Returning to the school, they gathered their things and waited for the boat to arrive.

Pandora awoke early as well, revising in bed and looking at pictures of family again before she got dressed and ready to go.

The three of them met up in the entrance hall of the school. They were given another permission slip to buy supplies, and were informed they were to look for a ship called the  _ Orcadia, _ down at the Halfway Harbour, expecting them.

“Um, when we get to the ship,” Mayes began, “There’s some stuff I want to talk to you guys about.”

“Okay,” Pandora nodded.

“When we’ve got some privacy.”

“Sure,” Icarus agreed.

“But first, um, Pandora…” they took out the dagger. “This is for you.”

“Yeah? Oh…” She took it.

“Finally finished cleaning it up last night, but it’ll be much more use to you than it will to me.”

“It’s really nice looking. It looks old.”

“Yeah, it’s some sort of ancient relic.”

Pandora gasped. “Should I really be using this? Should it not be in a museum or something?”

“No, Pandora. It’s going to be of use to you. Like, from what I understand, you can cast a spell and then channel the element of that spell into a strike with the knife.”

“No way!”

“Yeah.”

“That’s awesome,” Icarus grinned.

“And like, you’re sure you don’t want it?” Pandora worried.

“I can’t cast spells, Pandora,” Mayes chuckled.

“Well like, you’re the one who likes the pointy things…”

“Yeah, I've got two full swords. I don’t need a toothpick. But it’s a very magical toothpick.”

Pandora smiled. “Thank you for my toothpick.”

“You’re welcome. But, give it a cooler name than that.”

“Yeah, I’ll need to think of something.”

“You might have to attune to it as well,” Mayes warned.

“Okay. There will be time while we’re travelling, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Thank you so much! This is exciting.” She put it in her belt with her spell components.

“Should we see if we need to pick anything up then?” Icarus suggested.

“Yeah, like… I could do with maybe a couple more potions.”

“Yeah. What’s some more debt, huh?”

“What’s some more debt?” Pandora chuckled.

“Yeah, exactly,” Mayes teased.

They went down to the shops. Mayes grabbed another potion, along with some leather armour. The shop was quite snooty, and would only give them a student discount of five gold. They seemed bothered that Delphos hadn’t upgraded the standard armour for all their students, but passed it over for 40 gold. Pandora grabbed another potion just in case, and they were sure to pick up a few simple torches.

While all of that was added to their debt, they were able to pick up a few things on the school’s budget, including blankets, ammunition, rations, and water. They quickly did a round of the Imperial Plaza shops, collecting what they needed before heading to the Halfway Harbour. It was almost twice the travelling distance as from the front gates to the school, but they made their way down there, past the huge crenellated limestone walls around the outside of the city. They smelled the sea air as they approached.

Two pillars led out to the harbour, with open space between them. They could see down to the ocean of red sails and wooden masts, and beyond that, the sea walls that enclosed the entire harbour with huge gates, Erran’s historical defense from sea attack.

It was busy in the mornings, full of merchants, travellers, sailors, and Errani navy. They made their way down between flags, and they could hear the lines of the ships beating against the wood in the wind, with seagulls overhead.

Icarus glanced over the names of the ships. It was possible he could have recognized a few, but there was a huge flood of ships, most of them belonging to merchants or the navy.

Walking ahead, they could see on the sea gates a massive, colossal bronze portcullis, with a complicated set of banners spanning over it, being raised and lowered to signal to ships when they were allowed to move through. They walked down to a smaller part of the harbour, looking for merchant ships, and found the  _ Orcadia. _

The  _ Orcardia _ was a small merchant vessel with a similar design to a classic trireme warship, a grecian warship with a curve on the front, though at a far smaller scale, with just one bank of oars sliding out of the side of its hull. A black and white eye was painted on either side of the bow, which was not a tradition elsewhere, but something considered to be good luck in Erran, to have eyes on the front of your ship watching the ocean as they sailed. It had a large cream and green striped sail.

They were greeted by an air genasi who introduced themselves as Aio. Lithe, willowy, and totally androgynous, Aio stood just under six feet. Purplish hair was shaved in an undercut, and styled up into a bun. The hair sticking out of it seemed to float almost of its own accord. Their grey, pupilless eyes looked almost white, and their white skin was littered with large indistinctive lavender patches, some of which were translucent or pearlescent. They were dressed in a billowy tunic cinched at the waist, with pouches of spell components attached around it, and harem style pants cut at the sides to expose their thighs. An amulet of lapis lazuli hung around their neck.

“Hi,” they smiled. “I’m Aio.”

“Nice to meet you, Aio,” Pandora replied.

“Hey, nice to meet you,” Mayes nodded.

“Hi,” Icarus grinned back. “I’m Icarus.”

“Mayes.”

“Pandora.”

“Nice to meet all three of you,” they returned. “You’ll be travelling with us, I guess.”

“Yeah, thank you for taking us,” Icarus replied.

“No problem. I’m not in charge, but I’m happy to have you here.”

“Thank you,” Pandora smiled.

“You can… yeah, you can make yourselves comfortable on the ship. Climb on up. You sailors?”

“Yeah,” Icarus nodded.

“No,” Mayes followed.

“Not really,” Pandora admitted.

Aio looked them over, considering. “Been on many boats?”

“Yeah,” Icarus grinned.

Mayes crossed their arms. “One…”

Pandora shook her head. “No.”

“Okay,” Aio grinned. “Well, let’s hope you find your sea legs.”

They helped Pandora and Mayes onto the ship as Icarus deftly hopped on. The trio found themselves on a beautifully waxed wooden deck, with various barrels of goods being shipped, and other crew members running around. There were a couple of small goblins running back and forth, getting the ropes ready. Each oar required one person, and the goblins were only just about able to reach the tops of the oars.

There wasn’t a specific captain’s chair on this kind of vessel, but there was a chair at the back of the ship usually given to whoever had rented the ship for passage in order for them to direct it. In it lounged a lion-like figure, a leonin with a large mane and a deep set scar on one side of his face. Wearing a traditional seafaring tunic and loose pants, they were lounging back with their legs out, tail flicking behind.

Aio gestured up to him. “That’s Timoleon.”

Pandora looked over. “Is he like, the captain?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay…”

“Kind of.”

“Kind of?” Mayes and Pandora chorused.

“Mmm… No one is the captain,” Aio waved a hand.

“But he’s… in charge?” Pandora guessed.

“Today.”

“Is someone else in charge tomorrow?”

“Probably,” they shrugged.

“Okay…”

“That’s usually where the person who directs the ship is,” Icarus explained. “So he might just be taking a… it’s not where the captain sits. That’s where the… the voyager sits. To direct where they want to go.”

“That’s fair,” Mayes considered.

“Yeah, so it’s probably not his ship at all.”

“So, heading off to… Eras?” Aio clarified.

“Eras,” Icarus confirmed, “Yeah.”

“Let’s get going. Get yourselves comfortable. You will be sleeping tonight down in the bunkroom, grab any hammock you want.”

“How long is the journey?” Pandora wondered.

“Oh, it’s just over the length we can make in one day. So, I’d say tomorrow before lunch we’ll be there.”

“That’s good time,” Icarus grinned.

“Okay,” Pandora considered. “That’s the longest I’ve ever been on a ship.”

“Really?”

“I think so.”

“Huh.”

“Get comfy,” Aio teased. “Come on, mangy sea dogs!” They glanced upwards. “And cats.”

Timoleon, sitting at the top, did not look impressed.

The air genasi found a crate to sit on, throwing up their feet and gesturing for the others to do the same. There were probably about ten other crew members running back and forth, releasing the lines. With the oars cutting straight down into the water, they pushed their way off.

Loosing the green white sails down, they pushed very carefully to navigate around the other ships in the tightly packed harbour, sliding out into more open water.

Finally, the oars spread out. Each of the goblins took one, and perfectly in sync, they started heaving and pulling the oars until the wind caught the sail from behind. They felt the slow motion of the oars shift to the power of the wind, and the ship took off forwards.

The boat slid towards the sea gates, slowing slightly to wait their turn amidst the three streams of ships coming in and out through the massive portcullis. The right flag went down, then up, and the boat sailed out through the sea gates and into the open water.

Ahead of them, they saw a massive expanse of ocean, reaching all the way to the horizon line. The midday sun touched the waves, a golden sparkle across every little dip and peak of the water.

The crew started to sing a sea shanty as they moved down the coast, and Icarus joined in. The boat headed directly south, moving down the coastline and away from Erran.

For all of them, it had been a long time since they had seen the city at that angle, looking up at the marvelous gates, with the spectacle of white and terracotta heading on behind it. The Maw in the middle was the tallest building in Erran.

Slowly, slowly, it became a small speck on the horizon behind them, as the  _ Orcadia _ headed off down the coast.

  
  



	11. Revelry, Episode Eleven

Icarus tried to offer assistance around the ship, but the crew seemed to have it handled. There were ten of them on the oars, leaving not much else to do, so they were told to sit and relax.

Mayes headed below deck, telling the other two to follow them when they were ready to talk.

Pandora and Icarus shared a look.

“Wanna go down?” Icarus offered.

“Sure,” Pandora agreed.

“Yeah.”

Mayes looked over their shoulder as they walked, realizing the others were already following.

The three of them headed down. Luckily it was quiet down there, but it was just one long room full of hammocks, and small storage spaces.

Mayes sat on a hammock as the others arrived.

“Okay, so…” Mayes sighed. “I mean… yesterday, Icarus did us the courtesy of… you know, talking about stuff, and… I didn’t wanna say anything until I could be sure of what I was saying, you know? But… last night I spent a lot of time thinking, and… it’s becoming more and more obvious that I just… Whatever this might be, I just can’t remember. I thought… I said before when we were on the road that, like, we used to go to haunted houses and stuff when we were kids, back home. And I thought, maybe there was some truth to that, but… that doesn’t make any sense. Those stories are completely different to…” they swallowed, “What… Alexander showed us yesterday, and… The only thing I can think of is… Like, not too long before my parents sent me to Erran in the first place? There’s just kind of a… gap. Like, when you remember not remembering something?”

“Do you remember anything in particular leading up to it?” Icarus probed. “Or afterwards?”

“I remember… my friend, Jiro, said that we should… go and look for something in the woods. And, I’m sure you guys have gathered, in Vishima…”

“Don’t go in the woods.”

“Don’t go in the woods. But… for whatever reason, it was just really convincing, and I kind of wanted to go with him? So we did… And it didn’t take long before both of us got separated. Which is, I think, why I’m… not a fan of getting lost, you know? But after that, I just kind of… I guess they just kind of found me? Somewhere in the woods?”

  
“So it’s after you got separated that you can’t remember anything?”

“Yeah. And then… like a month or two later, my parents told me I was gonna go study on the mainland.”

“Had there been any discussion about that before?”

“Not really. I guess you could say I was kicking up a bit of a fuss before they sent me away, but…”

“What kind of fuss?” Pandora asked.

“Oh, I’m just… not really a fan of how things are… I guess, governed… around the island. But, small island, so. People hear things. But yeah, that’s… literally the only thing I can think of where something weird might have happened.”

“Seeing the ghost for yourself yesterday, did that bring back anything to you?”

“Not really. I keep having these dreams about… people around a bonfire? But there’s not enough to it…”

“Mhm. Well, it’s something, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s… about as honest as I can be with you guys, with what I know.”

“That's okay.”

“Yeah, that’s understandable,” Icarus assured them. He hesitated a moment. “...Not to get grotesque, but it looked like it had been…”

“Eaten,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Pandora frowned.

Mayes sighed.”Yeah.”

“Are there like, wild creatures?” Icarus wondered. “Is that another reason why you’re told not to go into the woods?”

“Everywhere’s got monsters and stuff,” Mayes shrugged. “Kinda just… wandering around.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“We have a few… myths about, spirits that will destroy you or devour you. But…”

“Nothing out of the ordinary?”

“Nothing that I can think to place.”

“Okay…”

“Nothing that folks don’t have all over.”

“Well, hopefully Kalifna will have some answers for us.”

“Yeah, I hope so. More than anything, I just… I don’t know why I can’t remember something.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not cool with that.”

“No. Must be frustrating.”

“Yeah. I’m frustrated this has put a pause on our exams, as well.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s okay,” Pandora agreed. “This is more important. I’m just sorry that you didn’t know anything about it before now. Like, you’ve gone through your whole Delphos career having this and not knowing about it.”

“Yeah. I guess ignorance was bliss, but… I suppose dealing with it is something.”

“Yeah, I mean, ignorance might be bliss,” Icarus conceded, “But you have no idea how it might have affected you.”

“I don’t feel particularly affected, aside from those aches and pains.”

“Just think, you’ve gone through all those years of school with those aches and pains, and you still managed to get through everything,” Pandora encouraged.

“Yeah, I’m good at what I do.”

“I think that’s pretty powerful of you.”

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed.

“Thanks,” Mayes replied. “...I appreciate you guys.”

“I appreciate you guys,” Pandora smiled.

“Feeling's mutual,” Icarus grinned.

Mayes stood. “We should go enjoy the view a bit more.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice.”

“I just wanted to do this in private.”

“Sure,” Pandora nodded. “Anything else that comes to you, you know where we are.”

“I’ll see if I have any more weird dreams,” Mayes chuckled.

There was a creak on the steps as someone came down. Aio descended, glancing across at them. “Having fun down here?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, just discussing what we need to do when we get to our destination,” Pandora covered.

“Oh, of course,” Aio put up a hand. “Privacy. I can- ”

“No, it’s fine, it’s fine. We’re done.”

“It’s okay,” Mayes assured them.

“It’s alright, just picking hammocks,” Icarus grinned.

“I was just gonna grab some sweet wine,” Aio gestured. “Take it up top. If you wanted to join in…?”

“Yes,” three voices chorused.

“...I will grab two bottles,” Aio smiled. They hurried off to the other end, where a small store was set up. Coming out with two bottles of wine, they pulled the cork out of one with their teeth, carrying them up to the top.

As the trio of students followed, Aio headed for the back of the boat, behind the leonin in the chair. There was an area with a few benches, and they kicked up their feet, handing one of the wine bottles over. Pulling the cork out of the second bottle for themselves, they sat back.

They leaned on the bench with a contented sigh. “I love to be at sea.”

Icarus basked in the salty air. “Yeah, me too.”

“I’m getting that feeling from you.”

“It’s been awhile, though.”

Icarus passed the bottle to Mayes, who took a long drink.

“And you two?” Aio nodded to the others. “You’re comfortable?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Pandora replied. “I was worried I wouldn’t find my sea legs, but I think I’ll be okay.”

“I mean, the last time I was on a boat, it was for quite some time,” Mayes recalled. “So… one day’s journey is fine.”

Mayes passed the bottle to Pandora, who drank.

“And what about you?” Aio wondered, glancing back to Icarus. “I haven’t seen a triton for a long time.”

Icarus shrugged with a grin. “No, me neither.”

“Do much sailing?”

“Used to. I haven’t really been out in the water since… well… about ten years?”

“Oh!”

“Maybe longer, actually.”

“Hm. Have any good stories?”

“I’ve got a few,” Icarus smiled. “Wanna exchange?”

“I love a sea story.”

“Alright, uh… Okay, one that stuck with me was… Do you know how dolphins hunt?”

“In groups?”

“Yeah, in groups, so they’ll be some at the back, some at the front, to try and corral all the fish into one area. And we came across a school of dolphins doing this, this gang of dolphins… Um, so, these dolphins were like, jumping out of the water over and over again,” Icarus moved his arms animatedly as he spoke, laying out the scene. “A spectacle on either side of the boat, for about fifteen, twenty minutes, as we went. And it was just… weirdly peaceful, watching those beautiful creatures doing that. It kind of just stuck with me.”

“Little moments like that you don’t get anywhere except at sea,” Aio declared.

Icarus smiled to himself. “No, you don’t.”

“What about you?” Mayes prompted. “You got some fun stories?”

Aio leaned forwards. “I’ve got plenty of fun stories. I’ve been at sea for about the ten years you haven’t been at sea.”

“Right,” Icarus laughed. “So we tagged out.”

“But… okay, my best story… This isn’t even mine to tell, but I’ll tell it anyway, because I think it’s far more interesting than any of mine…”

“Mhm?”

“Have you ever heard of the green flash?”

Mayes and Pandora shook their heads. “No.”

Icarus squinted at the horizon as he tried to recall. “Is it the edge of the world?”

“Some people say so,” Aio considered. “It is said that in the last rays of sun setting over the west, you can catch sight of a green flash of light, just as the light disappears. Now some people say it’s an optical illusion, some people say it’s a sign from Pelor, but other people say… it’s a gateway. To a different world.”

“Wow,” Pandora nodded.

Mayes tilted their head in thought. “Okay…”

“I was never inclined to believe such a thing like that,” Aio continued, “Until a friend of mine went there. Okay?”

“Went there?” Icarus grinned.

“Went there.”

“Spooky,” Mayes followed.

Pandora scooted closer. “What did they find?”

“Well he said his ship was caught in a storm,” Aio began. “And they got blown out west, far beyond the reaches of Caldera. That it was impossible to navigate which way they were going, or which way was home. Seemed like the sun was all over the place in the sky, until it started to set. And just as it dipped below the horizon line…  _ boom. _ Flash of green light. And then they saw land, just, right there. And it wasn’t just any land,  _ strange _ land, full of bizarre folks, magical folks who did magic unlike anything that you have ever seen. He said there were blue trees, and silver beaches, places you just didn’t seem able to walk away from, no matter how many times you tried to leave. They called it  _ the Infinite Isles. _ And when my buddy did eventually leave, he sailed right back through that green light, and he was right back on the shores of Caldera, like he’d never strayed off. He said he was only gone for a couple of days… but it had been nearly a year when he landed.”

Aio leaned back, folding their arms. “Think what you want of it. But, next time you’re watching the sunset… watch out for that green flash.”

“Very fantastical,” Mayes commented.

“Maybe. There’s plenty of unexplained things in the world.”

“Especially at sea,” Icarus agreed.

“Especially at sea.”

“I’m just wondering how he was able to leave,” Pandora frowned in thought. “You said that it was the sort of place you couldn’t leave if you tried, but he managed it.”

“He said that every day, he felt like he needed to stay another day,” Aio expanded. “And every day that he stayed, he felt a little bit more resolved that he would try and leave. Until one day, his feet were able to step off the sand and onto a boat, and he pushed himself back out to water. And then he was... free of their charm.”

“And he stayed on the Infinite Isles for a year? Or, stayed on the Infinite Isles for a few days, and then he came back, and a year had passed?”

“That one, stayed on the Infinite Isle for a few days. As many days as he could, before he could leave. Maybe a week, he said.”

“And then he came back, and a year had passed?”

“A year had passed since they set sail.”

“Wow… Well, time does work differently in different forms of existence…”

“True. So there you have it, a gateway.”

“I think it’s really interesting.”

“Maybe if you watch the horizon tonight, we’ll see it,” Aio grinned.

“Maybe,” Icarus chuckled. “Well, that topped my dolphin story, huh?”

“Yeah, you need better sea stories,” Mayes teased.

“Apparently so.”

“You need to be at sea more,” Pandora chuckled.

Mayes grinned. “Maybe something will happen on this trip.”

“Maybe it will,” Aio nodded.

“Yeah, maybe you’ll have a new sea story.”

“Maybe,” Icarus shrugged.

“But let’s hope not,” Aio amended. “Let’s hope for a nice, easy journey.”

“Please,” Pandora agreed.

“Yeah,” Icarus sighed, leaning against the bench. “It’ll be good to just relax for awhile.”

“I dunno,” Mayes shrugged, “I like a bit of adventure.”

The four of them relaxed, sipping at the sweet wine. The afternoon went on, and for a while, the wind picked up. The oarmen pulled the oars slightly back inside the boat, letting the wind carry them down the coast.

  
  


At one point in the late afternoon, Timolean stood up at their seat, moving over to the side of the ship. “Speaking of dolphins… is that dolphins?”

He was staring out into the water, pointing down. As the trio moved to look, they saw something breaching along the surface about forty feet from the ship.

There was a tail shape, but focusing on it, there was a flash of color that was definitely not grey.

“That’s not dolphins,” Mayes declared. “Wrong color.”

“What is it then?” Timolean frowned.

“Might just be some other sea serpent, or something,” Icarus replied. “I guess, everyone just keep your eyes open. But, leave it be for now…”

“Yeah. I’m sure it won’t bother us. Oars out,” Timolean ordered the sailors. The crew stuck out the oars again, speeding them up slightly.

There was a sudden  _ thud _ as something hit the underside of the boat. Where they were looking over the side, they saw a large fin protrude from the water, moving alongside the boat before dipping down again.

“Are there sharks in these waters?” Pandora worried.

“Oh yeah, there’s definitely sharks.”

“Big sharks,” Mayes observed.

“It could be,” Icarus frowned.

“Definitely it could be,” Timolean considered. “I mean, big sharks get everywhere, don’t they?”

Aio peered over the side in interest. They could still see the fin dipping in and out of the water as there was another heavy  _ thud _ from under the boat.

“That’s more than one, huh?” Icarus worried.

“Maybe, maybe,” Timolean frowned.

“Seems they’ve taken an interest in us,” Mayes warned.

“Hm. Well… if the three of you need to head under deck, I’m sure we can try and take care of this if it gets nasty.”

“Nah, I don't think so,” Icarus replied.

“If it gets nasty, we’d like to be here, I think,” Mayes followed.

“Okay. Well, that’s on you,” Timolean shrugged. “Not my liability.”

“You got any meat we can just throw overboard?” Icarus brainstormed.

Aio gestured a thumb over to Timolean. “Him?” they joked.

Icarus chuckled. “No.”

Pandora was starting to grow concerned. “Would that really convince them to leave though?”

“Eh, might just distract them…”

The boat moved on a short while longer. One of the goblins let out a shout as their oar was suddenly pulled out the side. The other sailors looked around, gripping onto their oars tighter.

“Oars in,” Icarus advised.

“Yeah, I think he’s right!” Timolean called.

They started pulling the oars tight into the side of the boat. There were two or three more thuds, and then creatures burst from the side of the boat with fishlike faces and humanoid limbs.

As the first body came out of the water, they saw a creature at least nine feet tall, with green taut skin dripping wet, a fin on the top of its head, and a fishlike face with nasty sharp teeth. It was holding a trident as it climbed up on top, and shortly followed by two more slightly smaller ones, maybe eight feet each. There were two more heads popping out of the water as well, more humanoid, but with black eyes and sharp teeth, with the glimmer of fish tails underneath them. Two shark fins circled in the water.

The large green creature climbed onto the side of the boat, jabbing towards Mayes with the trident before swiping its claws to Icarus. The two at the back approached closer, one heading to Icarus while the other went for Aio. A spear came to jam at Icarus’s back, but the triton quickly sidestepped, dodging the claw attack that came soon after. Aio was able to dodge as well, fending off the other.

In the water, they saw the humanoid heads with pale skin and dark hair continuing to circle the boat, keeping themselves ready in the water.

Icarus raised his holy weapon up, and a massive sixty foot cloud emerged in the sky, casting a shadow over the area. Lightning shot from the cloud, striking into the two by Icarus. The larger one took the brunt of the damage, but they seemed to be able to shake it off. The other looked quite fried already. Icarus smirked, bringing up his shield as he drew his sword.

Timolean, still up on the back end of the boat, pulled some darts out of a small loop on his belt. Throwing three of them, each of the creatures took a dart to the shoulder. Pandora quickly followed with a fire spell, setting the darts ablaze. The larger creature still seemed undeterred, but the one Icarus had shocked was barely holding itself up.

Aio looked over. “Oh, this could be fun,” they grinned. From inside their tunic, they took out what looked like a boomerang. Throwing it down into the water towards one of the heads, it struck across the creature’s temple before bouncing back, flying to return to their hand. Aio grinned in delight.

Mayes moved in to attack as well, but as the creatures flinched away from the spells and the darts, they managed to scoot just out of range.

The two shark fins in the water moved rapidly towards the boat, striking it from both sides. With the two positioned on either side on the ship, the force began to turn the ship off course.

The largest creature, looking very annoyed, shouted out a command in a language the trio of students did not understand. The two heads in the water turned towards the boat, their eyes quickly moving and darting up to where the merchant’s crates were stacked up on the top of the ship. As it swung forwards with the trident again, Icarus knocked it back with his shield. It brought its claws out again, swiping his shield completely away, clawing underneath it. As the sharp nails made contact, another bolt of lightning forced the creature to stumble backwards.

One of the smaller creatures charged at Mayes, biting into their shoulder with nasty, jagged teeth. A spear came for their gut, and they jumped out of the way. The other creature pushed through to Pandora, and she threw up a magical shield just as the teeth came down. Frustrated as their teeth clashed against it, its claws bounced off her defenses.

From the water, the mermaids crawled up. The boat was getting rather cramped. Again, they spoke in that strange language, but Icarus had the faintest memory of having heard the language before. The first one pulled out what looked to be a rapier made of coral, a long and beautiful multicolored tail trailing behind them as the mermaids dragged themselves up onto the deck. The coral sword swung once, missing Timolean before landing on the backswing. The other mermaid went in for Mayes, doing the same as they half stepped back to avoid the worst of the blow.

“Do I go after the sharks or the ones on the boat with us?” Icarus shouted.

“Just get them!” Pandora yelled back. “Get everything!”

“Okay!”

Summoning his spiritual weapon, the ghostly blade swung into the larger creature, while his physical blade went for another. The smaller creature dropped to the deck.

Timolean lunged with his claws. The mermaid managed to dodge at first, but the third blow raked across them, fishy skin splitting open in the front.

A sickly green bolt shot from Pandora’s crystal, poisoning the largest creature as it reeled.

“Good job Pandora!” Icarus called.

The big one was looking very rough now. Its body sagged slightly, flagging in battle as it tried to bark another order in that language, though with different words than the merfolk had used.

Pandora pulled her new dagger out of her belt, driving it quickly forwards into the mermaid nearby. Despite her lack of skills, she managed to hit it.

Aio took a look at the big one. “Oh yeah! That’s gonna make this easier.”

Aio sent out a spell that caused vines to wrap around the creature, the strands seemingly erupting out of the wood of the deck itself, keeping it restrained.

Mayes ran forwards, dodging a merfolk attack before slashing into the large one. The creature was unable to move its limbs in the vines, already flagging from the poison. Running in, Mayes sliced both swords through the creature, cutting it down in one.

“Go Mayes!” Icarus cheered.

Mayes moved to a mermaid next, but as the creature turned its head, Mayes faltered for a moment at the nasty sight of the pale face and black eyes.

The sharks slammed into the sides of the ship again. Without the oars going, it was floating off course now.

The remaining fish creature by Pandora grabbed one of the crates, throwing it overboard before leaning over the side, staring down at the shark. The mermaid by Mayes took out their coral sword, whiffing the swing before hissing loudly, and raking across Mayes’ chest with their nails. As the creature made contact, Mayes felt something quickly seeping through the wound.

They were unable to move.

The mermaid scurried forwards to the rest of the merchandise on the ship. The other, engaged in combat with Timolean, swung at him with the rapier. Pandora’s opponent hissed as well, swinging two hits into her as sharp coral dragged across her skin.

Icarus sent his spiritual weapon off into the fray, but the mermaid ducked out of the way to hiss at him again, speaking a language that didn’t quite register in his mind. Slightly blindsided, he swung and missed with the physical sword as well.

Timolean pushed forth with his claws again. The mermaid crumpled down to the ground as the leonin landed blow after blow, before kicking the body off the side of the ship and turning to the others.

Clapping her hands together, Pandora sent out a wave of fire, scorching at the remaining enemies onboard before stabbing the nearest one with her new blade. The mermaid went down as she blindly drove the dagger through the flames and straight into its heart.

As she did, she swore she heard a slight song in the air around her.

Aio, having just watched Mayes take down the largest creature, sent the same spell off to the remaining enemy. The familiar vines travelled across the deck, trapping the mermaid’s tail and arms down onto the boat.

One of the sharks rammed into the boat again as the other closed its jaw around the overboard crate. It began to swim down, disappearing out of view.

Aio glanced over the side, a bit offended. “They’re taking our merchandise!”

The last fish creature took a weak swing at Pandora, feebly shuffling towards her after being spectacularly burned. It was starting to smell a bit like cooked fish as it pathetically swung its arms, and Pandora was able to easily sidestep.

The cloud above Icarus rumbled as another bolt of lightning fired from it, cracking down to strike the shark across the back. An instant burn mark appeared from the lightning as the animal was pushed back. Icarus swung his spiritual weapon out at the mermaid, but the creature managed to dodge again.

Timolean took out a few more darts, hurling them at the shark. “That’s our merchandise, dammit!”

“What merchandise is this?” Pandora asked, throwing another firebolt at the mermaid. The spell hit, burning the creature up as the vines restraining it smouldered. “We need to get those sharks!”

“I hear you, I hear you!” Aio returned. Running over to the opposite side of the ship, they jumped up onto the side and off the edge of the boat. As they were in the air, they sent out a wave of thunder down into the ocean, knocking into the shark. The thunderous energy hit the water, sending out massive ripples as the shark began dizzily swimming in circles. Aio dropped into the water, laughing as they went, and swimming back towards the boat.

Mayes felt the paralysis poison slowly leaving their system. As they shook it off, they hopped onto the side of the ship as well, studying the shark for a moment before firing off a crossbow bolt. The bolt sunk straight into the shark’s face, killing it on impact as it sank down below the waves.

The final fish creature shuffled to Pandora again, jabbing uselessly at the air to her side with its spear. Giving up with the weapon and dropping the spear to the side, it lunged in with its nasty sharp teeth, which bit into her arm like glass.

“Ow!” Pandora yelped.

Icarus whiffed it once more with his spiritual weapon before swinging out with the physical sword, slashing upwards and taking its head off. As the final opponent died, he continued to rush forward with the momentum, jumping into the water to look around for the escaped shark.

The head was still attached to Pandora as Icarus took it off, the triton diving past her and into the water.

She quickly brushed away the head. “Ah, gross!”

Icarus breached the surface of the water, sinking down to open his eyes beneath the boat. There were a few rough marks and scuffs from where the sharks had hit the hull, but nothing particularly damaging. The other shark was long gone by now.

He popped his head back out of the water. “Other one’s gone. Ship took some damage.”

“What did it take, exactly?” Pandora wondered.

Timolean sat back down in his seat, looking over the crates. “Just… I think that’s some tea, some textiles… Nothing of particular importance, just things we were carrying.” He looked disappointed, but he didn’t look worried.

“That’s so weird, that they would just take a crate of tea,” Pandora frowned.

“I feel like they were probably trying to take more than that.”

“Probably looking for supplies that they could raid, or stuff to sell off? I don’t know,” Mayes shrugged.

“Well it took it down into the depths, as far as I can tell,” Icarus reported. “Did anyone know what they were saying?”

Pandora shook her head. “No.”

“Didn’t speak any of those languages,” Timolean apologized.

“Sounded familiar, but…” Icarus trailed off. “I don’t know.”

“Well, I guess your trip was not quite as peaceful as you were hoping for,” Aio grinned as they climbed back up, soaking. “I’m sorry about that.”

“You had to go jinx it,” Pandora teased.

“Said I was up for a little adventure,” Mayes returned. “So that was nice.”

“And now we got a new boat story,” Icarus chuckled, pulling himself back onto the ship.

“Yes.”

“We do,” Pandora smiled.

“Yeah, new boat stories for everyone,” Aio approved. “And hopefully the rest of the trip will be relaxing.”

Pandora turned to the others. “Should we take a break?”

“Yeah, that’d be good,” Mayes agreed.

“Get our strength back?”

“Take a breather.”

“We’ll get back on course,” Aio assured them. “One oar down.”

Aio swapped out with the other goblin, giving them a break and putting a bit more force into the remaining oar on the side of the boat.

“If you drop the sails, I can fill them up for a little bit,” Icarus offered.

Timolean sniffed, glancing back. “Sounds good.”

The sails went down, and Icarus sent a gust of wind into them for a minute, turning the boat back on course as the remaining oars maneuvered them around until they were heading back towards the coastline. The boat moved rapidly forwards in the short burst of wind.

“Thanks,” Timolean approved. “That’s a neat trick.”

“Thanks,” Icarus grinned. “Always been pretty handy.”

The three of them sat to rest for a while. Pandora concentrated on her dagger, sitting with it and stroking her fingers along the runes along the top. After some time, she felt a beautiful connection with the object, the quiet melodic tune coming from behind her again, but when she turned around, there was nothing.

Pandora studied the blade. “Is that from you?” she whispered.

Icarus kept an eye on the water as they went while Mayes tried to enjoy the scenery. As they moved towards the coastline, they didn’t see anything else dangerous, but they saw something else moving in the water. This time, it _ was _ a dolphin.

The occasional dolphin crested out of the water, swimming alongside the boat for long stretches as they cruised over the bright blue ocean. They passed white sandy beaches, secluded bays surrounded by pine tree covered cliffs, and picturesque small harbour towns of white and pastel, with rustic hamlets sitting high above on the hills. Their shoulders were warmed by the sun until it was almost too warm to sit up on the deck.

Pandora basked on one of the benches, laying out in the sun while Icarus found a shady spot where the sail cast a shadow, water spraying up at him at the front of the boat, cooling him down.

He thought about the strange language he had heard. It didn’t feel like something he had forgotten, but perhaps something in such a distant memory that he couldn’t place it anymore. It was language spoken, or perhaps sung to him when he was very young.

The sailors slowly picked up again, carrying on with their sea shanties as they sailed. Their spirits picked up, a bit more wine was passed around, and the boat cruised on until the sun began to set. Aio passed over oar duties again, running up to watch the sunset and leaning on the side of the boat, but there was no green flash.

The sun went down, and the crew pulled out rations, putting together a small meal they shared with the trio of students. They had a nice, quiet evening on the boat before making their way down below decks once the sun was completely gone. A few people rested while others remained to make sure the boat kept on course. The three of them found comfy hammocks strung along the inside of the boat, with half a dozen other sailors piled in. For Icarus, it was all comfortably familiar.

The boat swayed them slowly to sleep, and they slept peacefully through the night.

  
  


They woke to the sound of seagulls overhead, and the smell of someone cooking breakfast.

“Seagulls mean land is close by,” Icarus observed.

“They said we’d be there about lunchtime, right?” Mayes recalled.

“Yeah.”

“Good to know,” Pandora nodded.

Icarus slipped out of the hammock. “Let’s go eat. Did you guys sleep okay? How’d you find your first night on a boat?”

“It was better than I thought it would be, actually. Kind of rocks you to sleep.”

“Yeah, it’s peaceful, huh? Come on, let’s eat.”

They headed up to the deck and had a nice hearty breakfast of fried potatoes and fried fish. The crew was passing around more ale and wine already, but there was also water for people who didn’t want to be drinking at sunrise.

The morning continued on, and in a few more hours, they spotted their destination. Nestled at the base of a hill a small curve of land, surrounded by the stunning blue of the western ocean, there was the tiny hamlet of white houses that made up Eras Minorix. As they approached, they could see the village was overlooked by the ruins of some sort of stronghold, perhaps from the Era of the Great War, with a temple as well. As they glided into the harbour, they could see a pebble beach on the marina, and at the jetty, a line of traditional tavernas and terraces. Idyllic didn’t even begin to describe the view of this tiny town.

They found a space to nestle in and dock between small fishing boats and other merchant ships. Immediately, they could see that the town was filled with stalls and colorful flags lining the outside of buildings. The people in the streets moved excitedly, and the atmosphere was brimming with joy as kids ran about their feet while they climbed out onto the deck, their faces painted like clouds.

Icarus grinned, taking it all in. “Something going on here?”

Mayes observed the town. “Festival, or…?”

“I have no idea,” Aio admitted. “But, this is your destination…”

“Yeah, thank you!” Icarus grinned.

“We’ll be moving on down the coast to peddle our wares, but, we might see you again.”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks,” Mayes nodded.

“We would like to get back…” Pandora worried. “So….”

“Yeah, the school said that you could probably secure passage by any ship,” Aio shrugged. “But, we may see you on the way back, if you don’t take too long.”

“Okay! That would be nice.”

“Stay safe,” Icarus smiled.

“You too,” Aio returned.

“May Kord guide you.”

“And you,” Aio bowed their head a bit. “See the three of you.”

“Bye,” Pandora smiled.

Mayes gave a little salute. “See you.”

The crew waved them off into the town of Eras Minorix.

They walked into town, and saw more and more of the festival stalls and bright colored flags, with people in bright clothing. Everyone was looking very chipper, moving around and setting things up, and setting out a long long table through the town square for dozens and dozens of people to sit at.

Icarus stopped someone. “Hey hey hey, what’s going on? We just arrived…”

The villager was a male dwarf, carrying a bunch of fabrics wrapped up with more colorful flags on top of it. “Oh, it’s the festival to Kord!”

Icarus brightened. “Really?”

“Yeah! One every turn of the season!”

Mayes nodded to the triton. “Sounds like your kind of thing.”

The dwarf went on to explain that it was a local festival, where they celebrated the power of storms, and thanked the storm Goddess for allowing their fishermen to stay safe all year round. Kordigas was a local tradition, and had a bit of a rivalry between the towns of Eras Minorix and Eras Majorix, the larger town further inland. “Welcome to Kordigas!”

“Thanks!”

The dwarf hung some colorful beads around their wrists.

“Thanks,” Pandora laughed.

Mayes examined the beads. “Thanks.”

“Enjoy yourself!” the man hurried off.

“Kordigas,” Pandora giggled. “Really?”

“Kordigas,” Mayes grinned.

“We don’t do this in Erran,” Icarus laughed. “This is certainly a title.”

“Are you gonna bring it back to Erran?”

“I mean, maybe…”

“With a slightly improved title?”

“Please,” Pandora teased.

“Let’s enjoy it,” Icarus beamed. “This might be fun.”

“Yeah, sure,” Mayes agreed.

“We should also try and find where we need to be going,” Pandora advised. “Kalifna.”

“Yes…”

“Yeah, we can do that after,” Icarus assured her. “But… while we’re here, we might as well, you know… relax! I don’t think we’ve actually had a chance to do that properly.”

Pandora tried and failed to conceal her anxious desire to return to her exams. Mayes noticed the look in her eyes and gave her a fervent nod.

“I mean… there’s some pretty important stuff,” Mayes pushed. “We can enjoy it… after we’ve dealt with… things?”

“We’re gonna deal with things first,” Icarus revised. “And then we’ll do this! There’s no rush to get back.”

Pandora squirmed.

A small elven child ran up to them with a basket, their face painted like storm clouds with lightning bolts coming down off it. As soon as they looked at the facepaint, they got the feeling that the paint itself was emanating their joy. They held up a woven basket to them. “Food?”

“Thank you!” Pandora and Icarus chorused.

The child blinked, and held out their basket further. “No, food?”

“Oh,” three voices chorused, and then laughed.

“Uh, yeah…” Icarus pulled out a few rations, giving them over.

“Thank you!” the child grinned.

As the kid went running off, the group looked around to see several more children knocking on doors of houses and holding up baskets, asking for food.

“We don’t have that many rations,” Pandora warned.

“No, we don’t,” Icarus realized.

“No we don’t,” Mayes echoed.

“We can try, do what we can. Let’s try and find where we need to go.”

“Yes, let’s ask around.”

As they walked through the center of town, they saw stores selling crystal jewelry, a face painting store, an open bar, and someone with a canvas stretched across an easel to make caricatures of people at the festival. There was someone selling knitted blankets and homemade chitons, and different food stalls and delicacies, including a hog roast, fried octopus, and freshly cooked fish. They passed two made up cots with people laying on them, with two beautiful satyr girls giving them massages. They also saw a stall selling wooden lion and ram statues. As they glanced at them, they noticed the lion looked quite a lot like the one they had seen in the cage, with a long fleecy mane.

Mayes hurried to grab some fried octopus. As they walked, they passed signs for donkey rides on the beach, a three legged race, and a shark steak eating contest.

Icarus stopped in his tracks. “I could do that.”

Mayes’ jaw dropped. “That sounds awesome.”

“I could do that.”

“I could do that.”

“We should do that.”

“We should do it. Pandora?”

“Later,” Mayes advised.

“Later!” Pandora agreed, waving them hurriedly forwards.

“Later, okay!” Icarus relented. “This is just really exciting!”

“I know, but…” Mayes looked a bit frustrated as well.

“I know, but we’ve got stuff to do!” Pandora urged.

“Ghosts! Exams! Focus…!”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah,” Icarus sighed. “Ghost first, then this. Then exams when we get back.”

They asked around about Kalifna, walking through the square, but quite a few people shook their heads in confusion at the name. As they approached the center, which had a statue in the middle of the town square, they saw a human bard playing. She looked to be in her thirties, a bit curvy, and about 5’6” with dark skin and brown eyes. Her black natural hair was styled in box braids that reached all the way down to her thighs. She wore a short pink peplos pinned at the shoulders with shiny metal brooches, all belted at the waist with leather, and simple leather sandals. She played a kitara on her left hip, theatrically rhyming and singing.

_ A nymph, one of peace’s proponents _

_ Never fights, but seduces opponents _

_ Their violence, she quelled _

_ As if using a spell _

_ You should see her material components _

They applauded, and she gave a big bow as a couple of people flicked some coins into a hat she had laying on the floor. She cleared her throat, turning to them. “Did I hear you were looking for someone?”

“Kalifna?” Mayes prompted.

“Might be able to give you some information for the right price.”

“What kind of price?”

“Mmm… Couple of gold?”

The group hesitated.

“If not, don’t worry about it,” she shrugged. “I’ve got plenty of music to be playing.”

Pandora looked her up and down. She definitely seemed to know something, but she wasn’t sure how trustworthy she was.

“Okay, sure,” Icarus agreed.

“Yeah?” the woman grinned.

Icarus tossed two gold in her hat.

“Thank you very much. So Kalifna…”

“Yes,” the trio chorused.

“You’re going to want to head up into the hills at first light. It’s three peaks from here, heading directly south. You’re looking for large stone ruins, an obelisk in the center.”

“Okay…” Pandora nodded.

“So we can’t go until tomorrow,” Mayes realized.

“I mean, you can head there early,” the woman considered, “But who wants to spend the night in the woods, honestly?”

Mayes sighed, and then turned to Icarus. “So I guess you’re right, we can relax and… Don’t be so pleased about it, Icarus,” they grinned, noticing how the triton was buzzing.

“I am! Well- !” Icarus laughed, gesturing around. “Come on!”

“I know.” They turned back to the bard. “Thank you for the information. What’s your name?”

“It’s Euphrasia,” she replied.

“Euphrasia.”

“Nice to meet you, Euphrasia,” Pandora returned.

“Euphrasia Kitharoidos,” she grinned, strumming her kitara a few times in introduction.

“Thank you for the information,” Icarus replied. “That’s incredibly helpful.”

“No problem.”

“Anything else from around this area that you want to share?”

“Not really. Not without paying some more.”

Pandora sighed, and flicked her another gold.

She chuckled. “Well… you’re looking for a centaur.”

Mayes looked up with interest. “Kalifna’s a centaur?”

“Ah, didn’t think you knew that one. Kalifna is a centaur.”

“Okay…”

“Good to know,” Pandora nodded.

“Easy to spot.”

“Also, you won’t find him,” she added. “He’ll find you.”

Mayes stared at her a moment. “Ominous.”

“Very,” Pandora frowned.

“But… good to know? ...You’ve had experiences with him before?”

“No,” the woman shrugged.

“You just know things?”

“I just know things,” she smiled.

Icarus grinned. “Bards tend to just know things.”

Euphrasia smiled wider. “Thank you. That’s a compliment, basically. Three of you are down here from Erran, then? First time?”

“Yes,” three voices overlapped, each one a bit more wary than the last.

“I can tell. Seen another few students from Delphos Academy pass through here recently.”

“Oh really?” Pandora and Icarus prompted.

“Yeah. Not heading down into the same hills, just… said they were working on some sort of contract.”

“What do they look like?” Mayes asked.

She described a fire genasi with dark ashen skin, and cracks of reddish orange light shining through it. Icarus didn’t know her by name, but he did recognize her as a student of Domus Virtus. Euphrasia also described a soft featured and slender looking female half elf with very short with red hair, that none of them recognized. Finally, she mentioned a very athletic hobgoblin with an undercut, standing at about 5’9”, and carrying a bird. Mayes immediately recognized them as Theron, a genderfluid hobgoblin in Callidus in their same year.

“Oh, Theron’s group,” Mayes nodded.

“Okay, you know them?” Pandora guessed.

“Uh, yeah, they're in my class.” 

“Okay. Maybe we’ll run into them.”

“Maybe, yeah. That’d be nice.”

“If there’s that many contracts going out,” Icarus shrugged, “Then it’d make sense we'd run into someone eventually.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

There hadn’t been any contracts in this area when they had last spoken to Sebaste, so they figured Theron’s group must have taken it before or after their appointment with him.

“Well, I’ve got more music to be playing,” Euphrasia announced. “Unless you’ve got more questions.”

“You go ahead,” Pandora stepped back.

“Thanks for the info,” Mayes nodded. “Enjoy your… playing. It’s very nice.”

“Thank you,” the woman smiled. “I really appreciate that.”

“It’s good atmosphere,” Icarus agreed.

She flicked her hair, pulling the kitara up theatrically before strumming her way into another song. They listened for a few bars of the lyrics, recognizing it as a song about the gladiators. It was massively overdramatized, talking about things they had done in the arena as if they had been fighting titans.

Icarus tossed her another five silver for that one.

“Do you wanna go in the steak eating contest?” Mayes offered.

“Yeah!” Icarus squealed with excitement, counting off on his fingers. “I wanna do the steak eating contest, we should definitely get massages- Do you want to get a massage?”

“Yes, and then- ”

He turned to Pandora. “Do you want to get a massage?”

She frowned. “I guess if we’re not going right now…”

“Yeah, we’re not going right now!” Icarus returned to his fingers. “Um…”

“Massage,” Mayes prompted.

“Massage...”

“Contest.”

“Contest… Um, I wanna have hog roast...”

“Hog roast does sound good,” Pandora mused.

“And I want more octopus,” Mayes added.

“Umm…” Icarus tapped the next finger in thought. “And face paint! Why not?”

Pandora laughed. “Let’s start with all that.”

“Let’s start with massages,” Mayes decided. “So we’re nice and loose.”

Icarus grinned. “I want to get  _ loose.” _

  
  


As they approached the massage station, they noticed that the two satyrs were absolutely, most definitely twins. They had exactly the same sun kissed skin and freckles, blonde hair in two plaits hanging down, with wreaths of dried seaweed worn as a crown on their heads. They had on loose cropped tops with their fluffy satyr legs bare at the bottom.

“Hi,” one greeted them with a smile.

“Hi,” Pandora smiled back.

“Are you here for massages?”

“Yeah,” Icarus grinned.

“Please,” Mayes followed.

The satyr giggled. “I’m Sasu.”

“Sasu? Nice to meet you,” Icarus replied.

“And I’m Troke,” the other offered, smiling as well.

“Troke. I’m Icarus, we’re from Delphos.”

“More Delphos students,” Sasu grinned. “Nice to meet you.”

“How much?” Mayes asked.

“Two silver per person.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Icarus repeated, chuckling. “Consider that done. Here you go…”

“Okay,” Sasu took the coins. “If you want to strip down?”

“Sure.”

“Just to your waist.”

“Sure,” Mayes agreed.

“Only if you’re comfortable,” Sasu revised. “But… take a lay down on the table,” she invited.

Pandora held out her hands, “You two do it first,” she offered.

Mayes and Icarus took off their tops, getting themselves on the tables.

“Don’t worry,” Sasu looked Pandora up and down with a little grin. “We can both sort you out later.”

Pandora blushed hard.

Sasu came over to Icarus, all smiles as she cracked her knuckles, pouring some oil over her hands to rub it over their back. She put particular work into the tension of his spine. “Oh, you’ve been very stressed, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, a little bit,” Icarus chuckled. “Careful of the gills though, they’re really sensitive.”

“Oh sorry- ” her hand brushed across them immediately as Icarus giggled. “Sorry!”

Troke layed Mayes down, looking at them rather intensely as she oiled up her hands. “Okay, I can already see how much tension you have in your shoulders…”

“Yes,” Mayes sighed.  _ “Please.” _

There was a slight moment of pause before she gave them a very deep massage in the shoulders, the kind that hurt a bit at first before something cracked, and they felt quite relaxed.

The two of them got back up off the table, slightly dazed, and very pleased. The two girls looked at Pandora.

She was blushing again.

“Two silver?” Pandora squeaked.

“Two silver,” one replied.

“It is  _ so _ worth it, Pandora,” Icarus sighed.

Mayes was still stretching out. “Oh yeah.”

“I’ve never massaged a tiefling before,” one giggled.

“I know, isn’t it exciting?” the other grinned back.

“I’ve never been massaged by a satyr before,” Pandora admitted. “Let alone two satyrs at once…”

She passed over the money, avoiding their eyes a bit.

“Do you wanna strip down?” one invited. “We can’t use the oils otherwise.”

Pandora glanced over to the other two. “Look away!”

Icarus and Mayes respectfully turned their heads. The satyrs held up a blanket for her as Pandora stripped.

“Okay,” Icarus grinned.

“We weren’t looking!” Mayes protested.

“Yeah, we weren’t looking!”

The satyrs laid Pandora down on the table. She felt four hands working across her back, and squirmed immediately.

“You need to relax,” one advised. “If you don’t relax, you’ve never gonna be able to work that tension out.”

“Are you saying I’m uptight!?” Pandora squeaked. “I’m not uptight!”

Two hands worked her shoulders as another went up and down her spine. One of the satyrs giggled as they noticed where her tail connected. “So cute!”

The satyrs had little tails of their own, flicking slightly from side to side. Pandora’s massage lasted just as long as the other two, but with four hands. She was quite stiff at first until her tension finally slipped away, and she was drooping into the bed, half asleep.

“Okay, you’re done!” one beamed.

Pandora blinked, lifting her head. “Huh? What?”

“Feeling better?” Mayes prompted, a hand over their eyes as Icarus did the same.

“Yeah…” She got dressed quickly. “Okay, let’s go! Thank you…!”

“May Kord be with you!” Sasu smiled.

“And with you,” Icarus returned.

“And with you,” Mayes echoed.

Sasu winked at them.

Mayes winked back.

Excited, the satyr leaned in. “We’ll be around all day, if you want to see us later…”

Icarus grinned, glancing to Mayes. “So will we…”

Mayes leaned back a bit, but they were still looking back at the satyr girl. “...Sure?”

Sasu giggled again.

Mayes quickly cleared their throat, looking away. “Okay, let’s go… eat some shark!”

“Yeah,” Icarus grinned, looking between the two of them with glee.

In their comfy daze, they took a stroll through the rest of the stalls, glancing over as people shouted out their wares. More beads were hung around their necks, and looking down at them, they noticed that while they were colorful, they had designs of bolts of lightning striking through them.

“Ah, I wish I had my robes with me,” Icarus lamented.

“Well, you didn’t know,” Mayes comforted him.

“I know…”

They passed by a store selling festival masks. Nobody was wearing masks yet, but there were dozens of masks for sale. Some looked almost like storm clouds with lightning bolts going up the sides, some like fish faces with fins wrapping around the back of the head, and crowns of dried seaweed for two copper pieces each.

“Oh, festival masks!” Mayes pointed over. “Just kind of like stuff that we did at home,” they smiled.

“Yeah?” Icarus grinned.

“Yeah, you wear a monster mask and play at being a monster so that they won’t come and get you.”

“We should get one!”

“Sure.”

Icarus turned to Pandora. “You want a crown? Or a mask?”

Pandora looked in the window. “The crowns are pretty cute…”

“The satyrs wearing them were pretty cute too.”

“Yeah…”

Mayes coughed, looking away again.

There was a fair faced elf at the mask store with thick copper hair and green eyes, wearing a fine tunic. “Can I interest you?”

“Yeah, sure,” Icarus grinned. “We need to see what kind of masks you got.”

“Okay…” there were various masks, some of them designed like animals. All of them were very simple, and though none were particularly cute, they weren’t too intimidating either.

Mayes searched about for the ugliest mask they had, and found one resembling a catoblepas. They plucked it off the shelf. “It’s our friend!”

“Oh, it is!” Pandora laughed.

Icarus cracked up. “I miss him already!”

“I don’t miss the stink.”

“How much?” Mayes asked.

“Two copper pieces,” the elf replied. “Everyone will be donning them tonight, at the feast.”

“The feast?” Icarus wondered.

“You’re not local,” the elf guessed.

“No.”

“The children, you’ve seen them collecting food. They’ll be collecting food all day from different houses, and then everyone will cook it together tonight. And they’ll sit at the big table in the center.”

“That’s really nice,” Pandora smiled.

“I feel bad that we just gave them our rations,” Icarus admitted. “It’s all we had.”

“Everything helps,” the elf assured them.

“Cute,” Mayes approved, passing over the coins.

“Your mask…” the elf handed it over.

“Thank you,” Mayes took it, wearing it on the side of their head for now.

The elf looked to the others. “And what are you after?”

“Hmm…” Icarus thought for a bit. He found one that looked like clouds wrapping around in a crown, with lightning shooting back over the ears of an ethereal looking face.

The elf completed the transaction, looking to Pandora next. “And for yourself?”

“Um, seaweed crown please?”

“We can absolutely do you a seaweed crown.”

Instead of taking one from the pile on the table, the elf stood up, holding reams of dried seaweed. “Can I?”

Pandora lowered herself. “Sure.”

In a matter of minutes, the elf fashioned one that fit perfectly around her head and horns, decorating it with little pieces that looked almost like flowers. Looking closer, she guessed they might have been barnacles strung throughout. She touched it gently with excitement. “Thanks!”

“Of course.”

“Thanks,” Mayes followed.

“That’s really cute,” Pandora smiled. “How much is that?”

“Two copper pieces,” the elf repeated.

“Two copper…” she handed over the coins.

“Thank you, thank you.”

“No, thank  _ you,” _ Icarus grinned. “See you tonight!”

The elf offered a blessing to Kord as they left, and Icarus repeated it back to them.

  
  


The group hurried over to the shark steak contest. There was a small stage at one end, where they had set up a table with several places. There was a big half-orc up there who looked more orc than not, and quite tall, stretching to maybe 6’8” with bulky shoulders and hair tied back in a high knot. There was a halfling up there as well, kicking their legs as they sat at the table, a plate in front of them.

Someone taking names at the front asked if they wanted to sign up.

“Yes please!” Icarus grinned.

_ “Yes,” _ Mayes followed.

“Just the two of you?” the attendant prompted.

Pandora took a step back. “You go ahead.”

“You sure?” Icarus checked.

“Yeah.”

“You sure?” the attendant repeated.

“Yes,” Pandora confirmed.

They nodded. “Shark steak eating contest… we can fit you in the next round. Please take a seat.”

Icarus and Mayes headed over to the table, sitting opposite each other.

“Is there a prize?” Pandora wondered.

“Oh yeah,” Icarus realized. “I suppose we should have asked that…”

Mayes laughed. “We don’t care, we just wanted to eat shark.”

“You don’t care, just want the free food,” Pandora teased.

Looking around a bit as they waited, they learned the prize was a bottle of mood mark paint, the kind the kids had been wearing. The paint could be applied to the skin, and it would take on a visual effect that would show off the wearer’s mood at the time.

Icarus rubbed his hands together with excitement as the attendant approached. “Okay!”

“Are you ready?” the moderator grinned.

“Yes!” the two of them chorused.

The half orc and the halfling sat forwards, flanking them at the table.

“Okay. We’re going to see how many steaks you can eat in thirty minutes,” the attendant explained.

Icarus glanced to the half-orc, speaking Orcish. “Hope your eyes aren’t bigger than your belly.”

The half-orc laughed. “Oh no, I’m the champion of this.”

“Bring it on,” Icarus teased.

The competition began. Mayes and Icarus got the first steaks down. Icarus was extremely speedy, and the half-orc glanced over in surprise as he shoveled the shark into his mouth, giving the triton a thumbs up that Icarus happily returned. Mayes was just behind the half-orc, while the halfling was trying desperately to finish their first piece.

“The mistake is cutting it!” Icarus advised as he moved on.

“Just eat!” Mayes quickly agreed, grabbing the next piece.

The half-orc showed off slightly with the second steak, picking it up and dangling it above him in the air before shoving the entire piece in his mouth. The halfling was flagging behind. Though they had finished the first piece, and were now onto their second, they were barely chewing as they tried to swallow it down.

Icarus and Mayes had slowed down a bit in speed, but they were managing to keep the meat down rather well. The half-orc chucked back another one, and the halfling was now flagging so far behind that their shoulders were sagging as they groaned, forcing down more steak.

“You’ve got this!” Icarus encouraged them.

The half-orc moved onto his fourth piece as Icarus and Mayes were finishing their third. Glancing up, Icarus slapped his chest, giving himself a bit of a boost from his own magic.

Pandora watched the scene from the audience. Quite a crowd had gathered, yelling out their support. “Come on!”, “Come on, shove it down!”

The halfling dropped their head, giving up.

“No, you got this!” Icarus tried, but they were out.

The half-orc slowed down halfway through the fourth one, Mayes about on pace with them as Icarus polished off number four, pushing ahead. About twenty minutes had passed, and the pair of them were still going strong.

“Are you like some bottomless pit or something?!” Pandora called to the triton.

“You know this about him!” Mayes yelled back.

“Yeah, but that’s a lot of steak!”

As the bell rang, announcing the end of the competition, Icarus had just started on his sixth steak. Mayes was moments behind, reaching for their next piece.

The half-orc put up their hands. “I’m done!”

Icarus had won the shark steak eating contest.

“Okay, enough of that, enough,” the announcer grinned. “Your prize…” they brought out the bottle of mood mark paint.

Icarus smiled at the other contestants. “Good job!”

“Now you can facepaint yourself,” Mayes nodded.

“Good going, you,” the half-orc grinned.

“You were a worthy opponent,” Icarus returned.

The half-orc slapped their chest a few times. “I need to have a drink. I am gonna hit the bar.”

The halfling waddled off the stage, holding their stomach. They did considerably well for a person half the size of the other competitors.

Pandora gave a slow clap as the other two returned to her. “I’m exhausted for you.”

“I feel great,” Mayes teased.

“That was for the shark that attacked us,” Icarus declared.

“Yeah,” the others agreed.

Icarus adjusted his neckline, rolling his shoulders out. “Well, who wants dessert?”

“You cannot be serious,” Pandora rolled her eyes.

“No, we are. I am.”

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “Yeah.”

Pandora sighed. “Okay…”

They made their way down to one of the food tables, finding themselves some honey covered pastries and other sweets. Pandora watched on in horror as they continued to eat.

The group spent another silver throughout the course of the day on various snacks and trinkets, and as the day came to a close, the town had started gathering the children’s baskets of food at a large fire in the middle, cooking all the community contributions into one meal. As the stores closed down for the evening, people came out to help, with everyone laying out plates and gathering food together on the tables. The process went on for about an hour, and without leaving anyone to pay, they rang another bell to announce that anyone could come sit down to feast or take a plate.

“So,” Icarus grinned over to Pandora. “Do you want to face paint?”

“Sure,” she agreed.

Icarus turned to Mayes. “Yeah?”

“...Nah,” they decided. “I’m good.”

“Okay.”

Icarus painted himself in his usual design, with some paint down his chin with little lightning bolts coming off the sides, and a few dots. The paint fizzled slightly, and the others could see just how elated his current mood was.

Pandora used it to paint laurel leaves on her collar bones. “I’ve wanted to try this out for awhile, see if I like it.”

“Yeah, it’s cute!” Icarus encouraged.

“Yeah.”

“Really suits you.”

“Thanks!”

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “Victorious.”

It was clear in Pandora’s mood there was some simmering stress. She looked down and frowned.

“Maybe we should go see the satyrs again,” Icarus suggested.

Pandora and Mayes laughed nervously, looking away.

Icarus searched around. It didn’t take long until he spotted them skipping about through the crowd with some plates of their own, picking things over people’s shoulders and grabbing bits off the tables, piling up the food. The pair noticed them and waved.

“Hi!” Icarus beamed.

Troke had half a pastry sticking out of their mouth. “Hi!”

Sasu smacked her lightly on the arm as the pair hurried over. “Hi!”

“Hi,” Icarus smiled.

“Hey,” Mayes followed.

Sasu tucked a bit of hair behind her ear, smiling shyly at Mayes. “Hi…”

Mayes quickly busied themselves with their food.

“We’re gonna go down and sit on the beach,” Troke explained.

“Yeah?” Icarus grinned.

Sasu batted her eyes. “Do you wanna come?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Sure,” Pandora agreed.

The twins smiled. “Yeah?”

Icarus grabbed some bottles of drink while Pandora gathered plates of food. They carried their supplies down to the pebble beach, with the sound of the water lapping gently against the stone. The boats bobbed gently on the small harbour, which was much more peaceful than the ever bustling harbour of Erran. Hardly anyone was out here now, though there were a few other groups of families sitting out on the beach.

The two girls sat on either side of Mayes. Troke immediately turned away, engaging Pandora and Icarus in conversation.

“I won the steak eating contest,” Icarus began. “So I’ve got this face paint, if you want to use it?”

Troke gasped. “Please!”

“Yeah?”

“I’d love to.”

Troke asked him to put a few pretty dots on her face, and Icarus obliged.

Sasu sat by Mayes, twisting one of her plaits.

“...Nice view down here,” Mayes offered, not making eye contact.

Sasu grinned. “Yeah there is.”

There was a bit of a silence as Mayes glanced desperately back over to the others, who were staunchly ignoring them.

“So what are you doing in town?” Sasu wondered.

“Um… we’re just here on some business, from the… school.”

“That’s cool…”

“Yeah… We’re, we’re doing our final exams, so… just trying to get prepared for… tough tasks, and stuff.”

Icarus leaned around Troke to interject. “Mayes is top of their class!”

He leaned back around, quickly disappearing.

“So are those two,” Mayes added.

Sasu smiled at them. “Still, that’s impressive.”

“...Thanks…?”

“So can you like, fight and stuff?”

“Uh, yeah, I specialise in stealth, and being really quick on my feet.”

“Well… I’m glad I was able to spot you,” Sasu returned. She quickly went bright pink as she realized what she had said, embarrassed.

“I mean… not many people can, if I don’t want to be seen, so…” Mayes also went bright pink, not sure what they were saying either.

Pandora took the mood paint, handing it pointedly to Mayes. “Mayes is a great artist, so… maybe they can do some art on your arms or your face or something?”

“Oh, that would be amazing!” Sasu beamed. “Would you do that?”

“...Sure,” Mayes squeaked. “What do you want?”

“Anything!” she held out her arms.

“...I’ll do a crane, ‘cuz I’m really good at those…”

Mayes painted the design, and Sasu looked down at the finished product with glee. Her mood was immediately revealed as  _ flustered. _ “Oh!”

She cleared her throat, moving her arms away. “That’s really… pretty…”

“Thanks… I have…” Mayes went to their side, pulling something out of their bag. The usual assertiveness in their voice had grown much more quiet and unsure. “...I have a sketchbook.”

Mayes tentatively opened the pages.

Sasu looked over with interest. “Can I look through? Is that okay?”

“Yeah…”

Sasu shuffled closer as Mayes flicked through, glossing over the incomprehensible scrawlings for cyphers and focusing on the paintings. They held out the book quite timidly. “Here you go…”

She took it, flicking through the pages with interest.

Troke smiled at the other two. “We should walk down to the waterline!” she suggested.

“I’d love that,” Icarus agreed.

“Yeah, that’d be nice. Let’s go, let’s go do that, right now,” Pandora urged, standing up. “Like,  _ right now.” _

“Yeah.”

The three of them scrambled to their feet, eager to give the other two some alone time. Troke took both of them by the hand, walking them straight down to the waterline and leaving the other two in the sand.

Sasu passed back the book, fidgeting with her fingers. “You’re a really, really great artist.”

Mayes avoided eye contact again. “Thanks, I’ve been doing it for a really really long time… You’re a really… great… masseuse…”

“Thanks. It’s a family craft. You think we’re great, you should see our mom.”

“Yeah, moms are usually better at this kind of stuff,” Mayes chuckled a bit. “My mom’s a better painter than I am.”

“You shouldn’t put yourself down like that!”

“No, it’s, it's true. She’s… she’s really talented.”

“...Well I’m glad you came, to... Eras Minorix…”

“Yeah, me too.”

“You staying long?”

“Uh, at least the night,” Mayes considered.

Sasu shifted a bit on the sand. “Okay… I was hoping you’d be staying longer than that,” she admitted, laughing nervously.

Mayes stuttered a bit as they formed a reply. “We’ve got something we’re doing in the morning, but um… Maybe we’ll stick around for the festivities? A little bit longer tomorrow?”

“Oh, they’ll be wrapping up tonight anyway.”

“Oh,” Mayes frowned. “Um…”

“Back to work tomorrow. But you can always come find us at the massage parlor…”

“Okay.”

“My mom would love to meet you.” As soon as she finished speaking, Sasu looked away in embarrassment. “Sorry…”

“It’s okay.”

She laughed nervously again.

Seconds of silence passed.

“So- ”

“Can I hold your hand?” Sasu asked.

“...Yes…?” Mayes very tentatively offered out a hand.

She put her hand in theirs.

More silence passed. Mayes absentmindedly tucked away the many stray hairs they always had, before deciding against it and ruffling them back out. They continued to sit in quiet contemplation of how bad they were at this.

“...Um, aha…” Sasu shifted on the sand again.

Mayes cleared their throat.

“So- ”

“So- ”

They both looked away.

“I mean…” Mayes began, “You’re really cute…?”

“Oh, thank you,” Sasu blushed. “So are you…”

“Thanks,” Mayes whimpered. Shaking themselves, they tried again. “Sorry, I’m… I’m usually really busy, I don’t get the chance to…” another nervous laugh, “...Relax, like this.”

“Oh, um… well I hope you’re having a good time?”

“Yeah. It’s nice.”

She giggled. “Okay…”

More silence slipped past as they sat. Sasu fidgeted again. “Would you be… really upset… if I kissed you?”

“...No…?”

She grinned. “Okay.”

Mayes voice raised in pitch. “Okay…?”

She kissed them.

Down at the waterline with Icarus and Pandora, Troke had been looking over her shoulder every few seconds as the others did the same. They tried to be subtle, but they were not doing a very good job.

“Watch the water!” Pandora urged as Troke peeked over again.

Troke turned back away. “Yeah…”

Icarus gasped over his shoulder before turning to the water again. “They’re kissing! They’re kissing!”

Troke gasped herself, squealing with excitement as her tail wagged.

“Don’t look! Don’t look!” Pandora hushed.

Icarus grinned to the water. “Get ‘em, Mayes!”

“We should go back to the town,” Troke decided. “They’re distracted right now.”

“We should go find lodgings,” Pandora agreed.

Mayes noticed the three of them walking back up the beach, leaving them behind. They stretched their arms out, allowing one to fall around Sasu. She saw what they were doing and immediately shuffled closer, pretending that she hadn’t noticed.

“This is nice,” Sasu smiled out at the ocean.

“It’s a beautiful view.”

“Yeah…”

“Must be great looking out over the sea like this every night.”

“It is. I mean, it’s a small town, it’s not as interesting as Erran…”

“Eh, I’m from a… well, a small island in the first place, so. I like views like this. Erran is cool though.”

“I’d like to see it sometime,” Sasu sighed pleasantly. “Maybe I’ll come visit you.”

“Yeah. I’ll show you around the city. Take you to the arena, and see some cool fights.”

“Okay! I’ve never been.”

“We’re… Not to brag, we’re kind of friends with some of the gladiators at the arena? So…”

“Wow! They’re like, famous, right?”

“Yeah, it’s a long story.”

“Well you have to tell me all about it sometime.”

“...Sure,” Mayes squeaked again.

“Seeing as they ditched us… Should we go for a walk?” she offered.

“Yes.”

Mayes held her hand.

  
  


Icarus and Pandora found a nice room in some lodgings in the town. There was a fanciful tavern named  _ The Scarlet Blade, _ decorated with actual glass windows with pretty colors in them. They passed over eight silver for the room.

“Maybe we should send a message to Mayes, and tell them where we are,” Icarus considered.

“Give them some time first,” Pandora replied.

“We’ll give them some time,” Icarus laughed. “But at some point…”

“I don’t want to just intrude into their mind when they might be like… smooching it up, or whatever!”

Icarus grinned. “Yeah, let them smooch it up a bit longer.”

  
  


Mayes and Sasu did indeed stay out a bit longer, smooching in the moonlight.

After a while, Mayes gave a cheeky grin, looking away again. “I hope it’s not too forward… Do you wanna like, go spend the night somewhere? Don’t have to do anything, but like...”

Sasu’s jaw dropped in delight. “Oh  _ hell _ yeah.”

They found somewhere else to stay. Sasu knew another, smaller place, and grabbed a few bottles of sweet wine on the way in. At some point, Pandora sent over her message, telling them where they were.

Mayes returned with,  _ “Don’t wait up.” _

And the two of them had a great night.

  
  


When Pandora passed on the reply, Icarus punched his first through the air in celebration. “Yeah!”

As the night passed, Pandora studied a bit with her spellbook, stress still simmering through in the mood paint.

“We’re gonna be fine when we get back,” Icarus assured her.

Pandora snorted. “Yeah,  _ sure…” _

“Yeah! They wouldn’t, you know, say we were ready for final exams if they didn’t believe we were.”

“Yeah but  _ I _ don’t feel ready, so, that’s the point.”

“I know, but, at this point in time… There’s no point in stressing, you’re just gonna work yourself up too much.”

Pandora didn’t answer, carrying on with the book.

Icarus laid his head on the pages like a cat.

“Get off!” Pandora chided, trying to close it around his face.

“Come on! Put it down.”

“No!” she protested.

“Put it down.”

“I need to study!”

“No.”

“Yes I do!”

“No. Not tonight. Have some fun.”

“I have had fun!” she reasoned.

“Then keep having it. Just relax, for  _ one _ night.”

“...Fine.”

She put the book away until Icarus went to sleep, and then took it out again to read in the dark.

  
  


The morning rolled around, and they reconnected with Mayes, who was feeling quite smug this morning. They had a very cuddly awakening, and a bit of the mood paint smudged from Sasu onto their skin.  _ Smug _ and  _ pleased _ radiated off the marks.

Icarus grinned at the paint, and Mayes quickly rubbed it away, sitting with their usual composure.

Icarus gave them a friendly punch on the shoulder. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Mayes returned.

“Hi,” Pandora followed.

“Hi.”

“Good night?”

“Yup.”

Icarus grinned.  _ “Great  _ night, huh?”

They sighed, reminiscing. “Yeah…”

“She’s cute,” Pandora approved.

“She was really cute,” Icarus agreed.

Mayes nodded. “...Free massages.”

“Oh, nice,” Pandora chuckled.

They set off fairly early. The bard had told them to go at first light, and darkness was still simmering above. As they headed out of the town of Eras Minorix, they saw the remnants of the festival, goblets and empty bottles of wine littered about with things that would be cleared up later in the day. They headed up through the path that led winding up into the hills, the rolling peaks of hills and pine trees before them, and thick, luscious greenery about their feet. The sun was starting to beat down as it rose through gaps in the thin trees.

They walked for hours and hours until eventually they caught sight of what might have been an obelisk somewhere up on one of the hills.

As they walked towards it, they heard a heavy rumbling from the sounds of dozens of hooves pounding on the hot earth, racing towards them at a rapid pace.

They braced themselves at the sound.

  
  



	12. Hunt or Be Hunted, Episode Twelve

As they stood there amongst the trees, looking about themselves for the source of the sound, they found themselves quickly surrounded by half a dozen centaurs wielding spears and bows.

They quickly put their hands up.

“Um… Well, they did say that the centaurs would find us,” Icarus whispered.

Each of them wore an ornate helmet of silver, rising to a point at the top, with the humanoid part of their upper bodies donning matching silver armour. They had long, nimble legs and lean flanks. Each sported a natural colored pattern on their hide, and most of them appeared to have tattooed or painted their upper bodies to match the patterns on their lower half.

As they circled, one stopped before them to speak, the others keeping them surrounded. His hide was buckskin, his skin a warm brown, hair long and dark with complicated braids throughout it. “Identify yourselves and state your purpose in these hills.”

“Delphos students,” Icarus replied.

“We’re here for Kalifna,” Mayes explained. “We were told he would be able to help with an issue we’re having.”

The centaur regarded the three of them quite seriously, looking them up and down, and considering their weaponry. “I am Ormasos, of Bandolton. You seek Kalifna, the Unsleeping. What do you need from him? Do you seek his counsel?”

“Something like that.”

“Our Headmistress sent us on a… I suppose, more of a personal quest,” Icarus explained.

“Apparently, he has some sort of connection to the Ethereal Plane?”

“Hm,” the centaur frowned. “And why should he provide his counsel to you?” he paced back and forth around them.

“I mean, we were told to seek him out, so…” Mayes watched the centaurs circling them. “I didn’t realize there would be… a trial, or something, but… we’re just here to keep ourselves, and other people, safe? I suppose?”

Icarus leaned over to whisper to Mayes. “Do you wanna explain what’s going on?”

They sighed. “...There’s some kind of spirit attached to me.”

Ormasos nodded gravely. “I see. Well, I suppose you may follow me. We will let Kalifna decide if he wants to give you aid.”

“Appreciate that.”

“Try to keep pace.”

“Thank you,” Pandora bowed her head a bit.

The leader whistled, and the rest of the centaurs fell into a formation, continuing up the hill. Ormasos lingered at the back, just to make sure the trio was keeping up. The other centaurs took off at speed, bolting away.

The three of them ran along as Omeos trotted, leading them up an adjacent hill, away from the obelisk structure in the distance. He led them a few hills over, to a small clearing at the base of a hill.

They saw a rough camp with a firepit in the middle, with food storage and animal skins hanging to dry from the trees, many of which had been woven into blankets or different sorts of clothing. It was clear the centaurs had a simple way of life here, though it didn’t seem like a permanent home. There were a few more centaurs around the camp as they approached, among them one with a chestnut brown coat and dark skin on his upper body, also painted with decorative markings. He had long dreaded brown hair in a plaited beard, and bright golden eyes with a bizarre misty quality to them. He stood about five feet at the withers, but reached almost eight feet in total, towering over them as he approached.

Ormasos bowed his head. “Kalifna. You have visitors.”

The students followed to bow their heads. Kalifna leaned one leg down to bow his body to them in return, looking between them. “You have come to me with a problem.”

“Yes,” they chorused.

“You’re in need of my True Sight.”

Mayes stared up at them. “...Yes.”

Kalifna looked them over. “I understand. I will hear your request, and what you need of me.”

“Our… Our Headmistress just said that you’d be able to help, I have… some kind of spirit… attached to my person- ”

“I can see it.”

“I don’t know why it’s there, how it got there, what to… do about it.”

Kalifna considered. “If I did help you… I would be able to provide you passage into the Ethereal Plane. For a short while.”

“Wow,” Pandora gasped.

“That’s very impressive,” Mayes replied.

“But, unfortunately, nothing comes without a price,” Kalifna continued. “If you would be willing to help us?”

“What do you need?” Pandora asked.

“I will think of it. For now, settle at the camp.”

“Thank you, that’s more than agreeable,” Icarus replied.

“Thank you for your time,” Pandora followed.

Mayes nodded. “It’s only fair. Thank you.”

Kalifna walked off to the other end of the camp. There was a scattering of other centaurs around, all of them with their haunches alone coming up almost as tall as the students were. They were so small compared to them, it was quite a shock.

A younger looking female, wearing no clothing on her upper half, walked over with hooves softly padding across the dirt. “Can I get you anything to drink? You must have travelled a long way…”

“Yeah, actually, some water would be great,” Icarus smiled.

“Please,” Pandora agreed.

“I’m Icarus, by the way.”

“Lileo,” the girl smiled back.

“Lileo, nice to meet you.”

“And you.”

“Nice to meet you,” Pandora followed. “I’m Pandora.”

“Mayes,” the final member of their group added.

Lileo considered them. “I hear that you’ve come from Erran.”

“Yes,” they replied.

“What’s it like?”

“Very busy,” Icarus chuckled.

“Not as peaceful as out here,” Pandora agreed.

Lileo looked around her camp. “I think busy must be nice, sometimes.” She fetched a waterskin, pouring out a few goblets.

“It makes the days go faster,” Icarus grinned.

“You a bit restless out here?” Mayes guessed.

“...Can be,” she admitted.

“You travel?” Icarus wondered. “This doesn’t look like a permanent camp…”

“No, we aren’t nomadic, just… forced out of our homes.”

“How come?” Mayes frowned.

She glanced back to the obelisk in the distance. “What do you know about harpies?”

Harpies were wicked creatures who preyed on the living and ate the recently deceased. Mostly, they enjoyed robbing people. A nest of harpies would find a cave to nest in, somewhere close to a road where they could swoop down to prey on travellers.

“Nasty business,” Mayes summarized.

Lileo sighed. “Yes.”

“Did a nest of them move into your home?” Icarus guessed.

“They did.”

“How long ago?” Pandora asked.

“Six months.”

“Is that maybe... what you’re looking for help with?” Mayes hypothesized. “Because, I mean, we could always… We recently cleared out a nest of kelpies from a town… I know it’s not the same thing, but…”

“I don’t know what Kalifna will settle on, but, that would be my suggestion.”

“It’s a good suggestion.”

“How many are there?” Icarus worried. “If you don’t mind me asking… Because, it looks like most if not all of the people here are… very well armed.”

“We are,” Lileo nodded, “And there were more of them, but… the problem is, our normal home surrounds a tomb, one of our great ancestors. And, well, the harpies have made their nest inside the tomb. And blocked the entrance, so none of us can fit inside.”

“Ah,” the students chorused.

“Every time we try and fight them off, they retreat.”

“But we are smaller,” Mayes concluded.

Icarus furrowed his brow, giving Mayes a bit of an indignant look. “Not  _ that _ small…”

Mayes stared back at him, looked up to the enormous height of the centaur, and then glanced back to Icarus.

Icarus grumbled, turning away as Mayes chuckled.

“We’re a wiley bunch,” Mayes assured Lileo.

“Kalifna is a…” she lowered her voice slightly, “Somewhat hard to impress. And quite stuck in his ways, keeping the herd to itself. He’s not fond of visitors.”

“I wonder how our Headmistress knew him,” Icarus thought.

“Yeah, it makes me wonder why she’d suggest this,” Mayes agreed.

“I feel like she has a lot of fingers in a lot of pies,” Pandora whispered.

“That’s true…”

“Well he is quite unique, in his skills,” Lileo continued. “If it’s something you need, I don’t know of anyone else who can do it for you.”

“Well, let’s... kick it here for a bit while we wait for Kalifna to come up with an idea for us to do,” Icarus shrugged.

“And if not, we can always suggest the harpies,” Pandora agreed.

“I think we should,” Mayes replied. “If he wants to be impressed, that’s probably the most we can do for these people.”

“Or perhaps, if he’s not interested in discussing… you could do it anyway,” Lileo needled.

“Impress him that way,” Pandora nodded, considering. “I suppose we wait and see what he says.”

“Yeah,” Icarus grinned.

“For now,” Mayes decided.

“Not fair to be pushed out of your home.”

“No,” the other two agreed.

“So…” Lileo began, “What do you do in Erran?”

She sat down, tucking in her legs under a black and white pinto horse hide. She had darker skin, but had painted spots on it to look like the hide.

“We’re students at the Academy,” Icarus explained.

“The Academy?”

“Delphos Academy?” Mayes prompted.

“I’ve not heard of it.”

“It’s training for combat.”

“Combat? You’re going to be warriors?” she beamed.

“Potentially,” Icarus grinned.

Pandora looked away. “Not really…”

“It’s for academics.”

“Yeah, like a prestigious sort of… highest level of magic and combat.”

“Pandora is very talented and magical,” Mayes explained. “Icarus is a mighty warrior with the power of Kord on his side, and people are lucky if they can see me coming.”

Lileo smiled with interest. “That sounds very impressive, and exciting!”

“Yeah, it is.”

She looked down at the dirt, longing. “I would love to do something like that…”

“Are you a fighter, or magic user?” Pandora wondered.

“I can do a little magic, but nothing special.”

“What kind of magic?” Mayes asked.

“And, all magic is special,” Pandora added.

Icarus grinned. “Exactly. It’s a gift.”

Lileo smiled. “I can speak with some of the small animals around here.”

“Really?” Pandora brightened. “I’ve read about people like you. That’s so cool, I’d love to be able to do that.”

“It is nice, but, not very exciting… And, I would love to be a warrior. We don’t fight many battles these days, but it’s in our blood.”

“Then do it!” Icarus encouraged.

“Perhaps…”

“What’s stopping you?”

She tilted her head, frowning a bit. “Like I said, we like to stick to ourselves here.”

“No… I don’t think  _ you _ do, though, just judging from what you’re saying.”

She looked to the ground again. “...I would like to go out there and explore.”

“You should,” Pandora encouraged.

“Come to Erran,” Mayes offered. “Have a look around.”

She laughed. “Maybe.”

“We’d love to show you the city,” Pandora agreed.

“The arena,” Mayes added.

Icarus grinned. “If you like fighting, you’d love the arena. It’s where people go to watch all of these huge gladiator fights. And sometimes, they’ve got griffons, so they’re flying up in the air, and fighting wyverns, and reenacting old battles…”

“That’s amazing,” Lileo beamed.

From across the camp Kalifna turned to shout. “Lileo!” he tilted his head, beckoning.

She sighed, clearing her throat. “Sorry…”

“Don’t worry,” Icarus smiled.

“It’s okay,” Mayes agreed.

“It was really nice to meet you,” Pandora offered.

She stood to her full height. “And you.”

“Catch you around,” Icarus waved.

“Yeah.” She went off, dragging her hooves a bit as she crossed the camp back over.

Icarus looked to the others. “So what do you guys think of all this?”

“It’s not exactly what I was expecting,” Mayes replied. “When we got sent out here…”

“No.”

“What were you expecting?” Pandora wondered.

“Like… when the Domina of all people sends you somewhere, I just kind of thought it would be a case of  _ oh, okay then, _ but I guess… things are not that simple. It would make sense, that for something this big, we’d owe them a favor.”

“I mean, to go to the Ethereal Plane,” Pandora gulped. “That’s quite a favor…”

Icarus sighed at the magnitude of it. “Yeah…”

“But hey, the quicker we get it over and done with, the quicker we can… sort things out,” Mayes reasoned. “And go back to town for a little while.”

The other two looked at each other with a grin.

“Yeah, I think we can do that for a little while,” Icarus smirked. “Do you?”

“Yeah, we can go back,” Pandora giggled.

“We can hang out there for a bit.”

“We need to go back through the town anyway,” Mayes reasoned. “So…”

“Yeah, yeah of course,” Pandora gave an exaggerated nod.

“To wait for passage,” Icarus chuckled.

“Mhm, mhm…”

“How was Sasu this morning?”

Mayes looked off to the hills. “...Good.”

“Good night?”

“...Yeah… Yeah it was,” they laughed a bit.

“She’s cute,” Pandora smiled.

“She is. We’re just… awkward, but… you guys left me!” they accused.

The other two sputtered out their excuses.

“I’m…! ...Not good at getting past that first…! Hurdle! By myself?!” Mayes argued, struggling to find the words. 

“Well you must have been!” Pandora countered.

“I mean, I got there eventually!”

“It’s just like everything else, you need to practice.”

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed.

Mayes looked away again. “I mean… like…”

Icarus lowered his voice with a smirk. “Not that you  _ need _ to practice…”

“Hey! Well, I mean… There’s a few people on campus,” they admitted, “But…”

“You’ve got a few people on campus?!”

“I mean, I used to…”

Icarus’s jaw dropped. “You are a dark horse…”

“You  _ are, _ Mayes,” Pandora echoed, in similar surprise.

They shrugged. “I’m quiet, nobody really pays attention. But like, people know me…”

“And people  _ know _ you,” Icarus teased.

“People  _ know _ you,” Pandora chuckled.

Mayes waved them off. “Yeah but like, nothing serious!”

“That’s okay.”

“I get it,” Icarus grinned.

“I like Sasu,” Mayes continued. “She seems… nice. She’s bubbly.”

“She is,” Pandora agreed.

“Yeah,” Icarus grinned. “She’s cute.”

“She’s very good with her hands.”

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed.

Icarus tried and failed miserably to hold in his laughter.

Mayes elbowed him. “Stop it.”

Icarus gave them a big grin.

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself!” Mayes chided.

“I shall.”

“I’ll get you back for this.”

“How?”

Mayes stared back at them, considering. “Somehow.”

Icarus stared back, rising to the challenge. “You have your ways.”

“Yeah, I do.”

Icarus broke first, laughing as he looked away.

“You said yourself, I’m a dark horse,” Mayes teased.

Icarus laughed harder.

  
  


The centaurs had gathered on the other side of the camp to talk amongst each other, giving council to Kalifna. They couldn’t hear them, but a few seemed to put their foot down, arguing with him, as others vehemently agreed with him. All of the centaurs had looked over at the trio from time to time, and the students waved back.

After an hour, Kalifna returned to them. “We would like you to prove that you are worthy of our secrets.”

“Of course,” Icarus agreed.

“Of course,” Pandora followed. “Is there anything in particular that you would want us to do?”

“We would like to take you further into the hills. Spend one night.”

“Okay…”

“Without your weapons or armour.”

“Okay.”

“Agreed,” Icarus followed.

Mayes nodded slowly. “Okay… What about your home?”

Kalifna raised a brow in question.

“The harpies?”

Kalifna sighed, looking off with a frown.

“We’d be more than happy to help you with that- ”

Kalifna’s jaw tightened as he glanced over at Lileo. “That is none of your concern.”

“...But we’d like to help if we can…”

Pandora held out a hand. “Mayes, let’s not offend them.”

They backed down. “Okay…”

Kalifna looked them over once more. “So do you accept your trial?”

“We accept,” Icarus agreed. “Thank you for the generous offer.”

“Ormasos will take your supplies now.”

The centaurs took their weapons and armour, though they allowed them to keep basic survival supplies, bedrolls, and tinderboxes. Icarus unhooked his holy symbol from his weapon, tying it around his neck instead. Pandora’s pendant appeared to be nothing more than a simple piece of jewelry, so they didn’t take it.

Between the three of them, they were given one dagger. Mayes took it right away.

Icarus hesitantly handed over Lorakai’s sword. “That’s really old,” he warned.

“We will respect that,” Ormasos assured them as he took the blade. They were laying down the weapons carefully, making sure they were protected.

Ormasos looked up to the sun, which was high in the sky to signal midday. “Twenty four hours,” he declared. “I will lead you to where we’re leaving you.”

“Will you return to find us, or do we need to find our way back to you?” Icarus wondered.

“I will return to fetch you,” he clarified.

“Okay,” the other two nodded.

Icarus grinned. “Lead the way.”

As he led them out of the camp, the other centaurs watched. They were clearly a proud people, and the thought of strangers asking for use of their skills was not pleasing to them.

As Ormasos led them through the hills, he explained that their herd had lived in the hills for 500 years. These were sacred ground to them, and surviving a night would earn them Kalifna’s respect.

“Is there anything about these lands that we should know about?” Pandora asked. “Any… creatures that come out at night, or anything like that?”

“Hm. Beyond your usual beasts out in the wilderness like this… There were quite a few deaths here, during the War of the Three Crowns. Look out for will-o’-wisps.”

“Okay…”

“At least we can spot them in the dark,” Icarus nodded.

Omeses led them on to walk for two miles, winding through the hills. They had no idea how far they were from the camp.

“We will leave you here, and see your efforts tomorrow.”

“Thank you very much,” Pandora replied.

Icarus smiled. “See you tomorrow.”

The centaur turned, and they were left in a small clearing, with a few collapsed columns from what might have been a stone temple from the past, and a stream running through to the side.

Investigating further, they found symbols on the collapsed columns that suggested it was once a sacred place to Sehanine. The carvings alluded that historically, a hunt passed through this place, and this was either the start or end to the sacred ritual.

They gathered materials from the scattered branches and leaf litter to start trying to build a camp. Mayes was quite adept at putting together shelters, and set about instructing the others. Unfortunately, neither of the others had ever spent any time out in the wild or sleeping rough in the woods, and they had almost no skills whatsoever.

Mayes looked at the poor excuse for a shelter in disbelief. “Did you guys never play outside like this when you were kids?”

“Not like… out, like  _ this _ out…” Pandora defended.

“You never made yourself a fort, just... out?”

“Not like  _ this _ out! We made blanket forts and stuff…”

Mayes sighed.

“You just tell us what to do! And we’ll do it…”

“Yeah…”

Mayes did their best to direct them, but the shelter was still rubbish. They spent three or four hours just making the shape of it. After a long time, Mayes just waved them away to do it themselves, trying to make sure it at least wouldn’t fall on them in the middle of the night.

Icarus went to look for fish in the river. Wandering up and down the stream for a bit, he found a slightly wider and deeper part, with the shapes of several large fish moving through it.

“Who wants to eat fish tonight?” he called back.

“Yes,” Mayes replied.

“I won’t say no to fish,” Pandora agreed.

“Okay.” Icarus put his head under the water. All he had to do was ask them to swim over, and they did.

Mayes was still fixing up the shelter, but Pandora glanced over to watch. Amazingly, Icarus just reached in, throwing fish out and onto the land one by one, where they wriggled around desperately.

“Oh! Okay!” Pandora scrambled over. “Cool!”

Icarus glanced back at the pile. “Okay, do you think that’s enough?”

“That’s a lot! That’s a lot of fish!”

Icarus put his head back under.  _ “Okay, the rest of you can go home. Thank you!” _

The fish dispersed. They had a considerable amount of food for the night, with two large pieces of fish for each of them.

Icarus gathered them in a leaf, bringing the load back to the camp. “Hey!”

Mayes’ jaw dropped at the sight of the feast. “I  _ love _ you,” they declared. “I love you  _ so much. _ Thank you.”

“You’re welcome!”

“We can have those for dinner,” Pandora planned. It was only about three in the afternoon by now, so they had some time.

Icarus considered the fish. “It’s so weird, that they listen, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is kind of morbid.”

Icarus turned to Mayes. “I just kind of stuck my head and said,  _ come over here, _ and they did.”

Mayes frowned. “Yeah…”

_ “Come here, little fishy,” _ Pandora teased.  _ “Right into my mouth.” _

“I don’t want to think about your methods.”

Icarus put up his hands in defense. “Is it any worse than actually, like, luring one and catching it?”

“I mean…”

“With a hook through the mouth?”

Mayes shrugged. “My dad’s a fisherman, so.”

“Eh, you don’t really care then.”

“No. We just throw out a massive net, and pull them all up.”

“Food is food.”

“Food is food. I like fish.”

Icarus took another sweep around the area to look for any threats. He wandered up the stream for a while, trying to get used to the area and ensuring nothing was lurking nearby. Suddenly, he saw something move near a couple of large rocks further up the stream, and headed up to approach.

He saw the shell of a turtle. It was a big turtle. It was a very, very big turtle. The other two heard Icarus yelp in the distance as the giant snapping turtle, previously thought to be a rock, lunged out to bite him.

It was incredibly painful, but as soon as the animal made contact, Icarus retaliated with an electric shock. Lightning crackled across the turtle’s shell, and it looked infuriated.

“Hey buddy, you bit me first!” Icarus chided.

The turtle started moving towards him. It was slow, but it was intent.

“Icarus, just leave it!” Mayes yelled over.

Icarus walked around the turtle, but it was more nimble than he expected, somehow keeping up with him. “Oh, it’s real fast!”

“Icarus, tip it over!”

He reached out to try and heave it over. It turned its head, trying to snap at him again, but he managed to step away.

“Icarus, leave it alone!” Pandora called.

“No!” Icarus called back, indignant. “It’s fucking with me! What if this guy comes in the middle of the night?” Icarus rounded on the turtle, interrogating it with an accusing finger. “Are you gonna come for me at night?”

It snapped again, and Icarus quickly retracted the finger. He clapped his hands together, preparing himself before squatting down to flip the turtle onto its back with a heavy push. The turtle laid there upside down, about the size of a large dog, snapping up at him as its legs flailed.

Icarus lowered himself by its face, though safely out of range of its bite. The turtle snapped anyway.

“Hey! I will put you the right way up if you go away. Stop trying to bite me.”

It snapped.

“Hey!”

In the distance, Pandora and Mayes watched with varying levels of disbelief.

“It’s a water creature!” Pandora shouted over. “Can you not talk to it?”

Icarus addressed the turtle again. “Go away!”

The turtle wiggled its legs.

Icarus sighed, and flipped it back over. The turtle immediately tried to snap at him again, but missed.

“Go away!  _ Go away,” _ he ordered.

“He was there first!” Pandora’s voice echoed over.

The turtle stared into Icarus. Icarus stared back, and was promptly snapped at again.

Suddenly, it began racing towards him.

Reacting in an instant, Icarus jumped, landing on its back. It was large enough for him to stand on, and would probably make a good chair.

Mayes watched from the camp, casually leaning over to Pandora. “You know, legends say that Kishima and Vishima were made out of the corpse of a huge dragon turtle, that was defeated by like, mighty warriors, who had the islands named after them.”

  
  


“Are you saying that we might have a new island appear here today?” Pandora grinned.

“No, I’m saying that if the turtle magically turns into a rock or something, it does have to be called Icarus.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Pandora squinted into the distance. “...Should we help him, or...?”

“No.”

“He’s sort of digging a hole for himself.”

“Pandora, this is… this is very entertaining,” Mayes grinned. “He got himself into this, I’m sure the highest in House Virtus can get himself out.”

“I mean, he’s a future gladiator, after all…”

“He’s a future gladiator. If he can’t defeat a turtle, how’s he gonna…?”

“It’s just going to be embarrassing.”

Icarus took the rope out of his bag. Making a loop, he managed to get the rope around it, but the turtle would not go quietly. He had it reined, but it refused to maneuver, trying to wiggle him off.

“I just don’t think I can trust you!” he reasoned.

Icarus continued to harass the turtle. In the meantime, Pandora and Mayes set up their bedrolls, got out their cooking supplies, and built a bit of a firepit. Mayes went off picking herbs for tea, safely able to identify what was edible. Pandora sat in her bedroll in the shelter, revising for the exams with her book.

As Mayes returned with their herbs, feeling pleased with themselves, Icarus led a newly tamed giant snapping turtle to their camp, proudly sitting on its shell.

“Hey,” he grinned.

Pandora held her book close. “Don’t bring that thing in here!”

Icarus slowly turned the turtle, parking it.

Mayes eyed the strange picture. “Have you guys settled… whatever it was you were trying to settle?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Icarus reported. He gave the turtle a stern look. “You’re not going to cause any more trouble now, are you?”

The turtle stared back at him, but didn’t snap.

Icarus gave the others a satisfied nod.

“...Okay. You want tea?” Mayes offered.

“Yeah, I’d love some tea.”

“Okay.”

Icarus gave the turtle one of his fish. It was very pleased, gobbling it down.

“So you have a pet now,” Mayes concluded.

“You can’t keep it,” Pandora frowned.

Icarus grinned over to her. “Why?”

“You think you’re going to bring that back to Delphos!?”

“...I mean…”

“You’re going to keep that in Lorakai’s room?”

“No! I’d keep it in mine.”

“What’s Lorakai going to say!?”

“Or the bathhouse…”

“You can’t keep a snapping turtle in the bathhouse!”

“No,” Mayes agreed.

Icarus laughed. “I really enjoy saying things, and you think that I’m being completely serious about it.”

“I can never tell with you!” Pandora defended.

“Pandora’s serious about everything,” Mayes reasoned.

“True,” Icarus considered. “Well no, of course I’m not gonna take it from its island.”

Pandora frowned. “What? I’m not serious about everything,” she protested.

There was a bit of a pause, and the other two shared a look. “Not  _ everything…” _ they chorused.

“But you know… You have a certain respectable, sensible air about yourself,” Mayes revised.

Pandora crossed her arms, sitting back. “Good save. You can’t keep a turtle.”

“I wasn’t going to!” Icarus defended.

“What are you going to do with it now? Like, while we’re here?”

“It can hang out for now. We’re cool now.”

Icarus glanced over to it. The turtle nodded its head at him, and he nodded back.

  
  


As the afternoon went on, they didn’t have much else to do. They had food, they had fresh running water, a camp, and a turtle. They heard something larger moving though the brush close by, and after taking some time to look, they found a few large feline paw prints that had been moving through, though they didn’t find what had been making the sound. The prints looked rather big.

“Big cats,” Mayes warned. “I guess, watch out.”

“Yeah,” Icarus nodded.

“They could be nocturnal, so.”

“Most likely,” Pandora worried.

“Yeah, well, we can take watches,” Icarus assured them.

“Exactly,” Mayes agreed.

“And I can put an alarm up,” Pandora offered.

“Yeah, that’d be really handy,” Icarus smiled. “And light, we need more light…”

“I’ve got our magic torch.”

“True…”

“That’s not a weapon.”

“Well, it could be improvised,” Icarus grinned. “If it came down to it. But let’s not burn down their forest.”

The afternoon rolled on into the evening, and the sun began to go down. It was very peaceful, the last rays of light striking through the leaves, leaving dappled patterns across the ground. The three of them set up cooking their fish over the makeshift fire.

The sun set completely into the night, and they noticed that the moon, which was quite thin as they neared the end of the month, left a strong beam down into their campsite.

Icarus looked up at it. “Makes sense, moon coming here, if it used to be a temple to Sehanine. It must have been really magical, for those that worshipped her to be here.”

“Must have been,” Pandora agreed. “It’s beautiful here now.”

“Yeah.”

“Must have been magnificent back when it was first built.”

“It’s definitely got an air of peace to it, huh?”

“Good spot to spend the night,” Mayes replied.

Icarus released the turtle, and it waddled back up to its spot upriver, snapping at him no more.

“Goodbye, Johan,” Icarus chuckled.

Pandora laughed, covering her face. “You can’t call it Johan!”

“Why?”

“Johan’s nice,” Mayes argued.

“Johan’s a nice guy!” Pandora agreed.

Icarus tilted his head. “True…”

“Call it Alexis,” Mayes suggested.

Icarus thought for a moment, and then grinned wide. “Goodbye, Alexis.”

“There you go,” Mayes approved. “Needlessly starting fights all over.”

“It did!”

“Yeah.”

“It hurt!” Icarus held up his injured hand as evidence.

Mayes gave him a look.

  
  


Pandora set an alarm around their camp, and Icarus sat down for the first watch as the others slept. The light of the fire started to dim mid-watch, and he couldn’t see in the dark, so he had to go by the moonlight. He heard some loud rustling noises, and something moving, along with the creaking of the pine trees in the slight breeze. The trees were very old, towering over them as they creaked. It set his nerves alight, sitting there without his sword, without his shield, unable to see what was moving.

After his shift, he gently shook Pandora’s shoulder.

She turned over, rubbing her eyes. “Hm? Hi…”

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Ready to take a watch?”

“Yeah. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, the fire started dying, I couldn’t do anything about it.”

Pandora flicked her hand, and the flame grew.

He nodded appreciatively to the fire. “Great. There’s a lot of weird noises, so…”

“Oh, good.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay… Well, try and get some sleep.”

“Thanks.”

Icarus curled down into his bedroll as Pandora took his spot by the fire. She stared out into the brush, her eyes adjusting to the dim light. Everything was thrown into shades of grey for sixty feet around her, and she saw some bushes rustle to one side. Focusing on them, she didn’t see anything until she caught the shape of something on the other side.

Suddenly, she realized there were two hulking feline shapes circling the camp, each slightly larger than the average lion. Pandora readied herself to wake the others. She kept her eyes keenly on them, while her ears just barely picked up the sound of something else behind her.

Turning her head, she saw another approaching the camp quite rapidly, sneaking through the underbrush. It was a large beast, slightly bigger than a lion, but with no mane. Two huge teeth protruded from its lower jaw. It wasn’t like anything she had ever seen before.

It snuck in, trying to get a good position around the camp.

Pandora sent her voice into the other’s minds.  _ “Get up. There’s something coming.” _

The two startled awake, Pandora’s voice invading their dreams. Alerted, they reached for their weapons, only to remember there was nothing with them.

Icarus blinked out of sleep. _ “What’s going on?” _

_ “I think there’s some big cats stalking us,” _ Pandora’s voice returned. _ “Coming towards the camp.” _

_ “Okay. Eyes open.” _

Pandora watched the other two shapes in the darkness, the group of predators approaching the camp from three angles.

Mayes did their best to duck back into the shelter they had built, feeling reasonably hidden.

Pandora sent out a defensive spell, magical armour shimmering over her as Icarus summoned his spiritual weapon, keeping it low to the ground. It appeared near his feet, floating silently. He stood in the center of the camp, spotting the cats as Pandora pointed them out. They were definitely hunting them.

Icarus moved first, sending out his spiritual weapon to the one in front of him, and striking it across the shoulder as he sent out a spell. The sound of bells rang in the creature’s mind, but it didn’t seem bothered by the noise.

Pandora held out her hands, and a familiar explosion of fire shot from her hands to engulf one of the cats for a moment, singing its fur. Of the three, one seemed a bit more muscular, moving into the center of their camp circle and setting off Pandora’s alarm. It turned and clocked Mayes, all of its fur seeming to sparkle like starlight. Now exposed in the light, Icarus recognized it as a saber toothed tiger.

The tiger leapt into the shelter, biting Mayes. Knocking them down, it bit them again, piercing into their side as they did their best to roll away.

The burned creature ran towards Pandora, clawing at her as she held up a magical shield. Its paws deflected across the shimmering shield of magic, sparks flying from it.

The third creature circled, backing up slightly before it charged towards Icarus. He stepped out of the way, and it skidded past in the leaf litter before turning on him again. Icarus taunted it, puckering his lips and making kissing noises at it to beckon it closer.

Mayes stood up, rolling to their feet and slashing across the flank of their feline attacker with the dagger.

“Here, kitty kitty kitty,” Icarus grinned.

Steeling himself to make the blow as powerful as possible, Icarus let out an enormous blast of thunder, forcing the cat back as his spiritual weapon came striking in again. The leaf litter was blown away in the blast as the wall of energy smacked into the tiger, looking seriously hurt as the ghostly sword chased it.

The three students stood in a triangle around the camp, each taking on one of the creatures. Pandora skirted around the one pursuing her, lining up a shot to try out a spell she had been revising earlier. She held her pendant in one hand, drawing her other hand back. A thirty foot jet of fire shot out in a line, igniting the flame right into the animal’s face and scorching the one behind it that Icarus had pushed into position.

The big one snarled at Mayes, looking furious. It bit into them a third time, snapping out with its teeth and catching their thigh as they hurried to sidestep.

Of the two smaller ones, both of them slightly crispy now, neither sparkled in the light in the way the larger one had. One circled to charge Icarus, who was once again goading it. It snapped at him with giant jaws, but he was able to move away before it knocked him over. The other one swiped at Pandora with a claw, but she stepped back as well.

Mayes swung with their dagger again, managing a solid strike. Scooping up a rock from the ground, they went in to clock it with the stone.

With another spell from Icarus, the first animal went down. Looking up to see the huge creature on Mayes, he glanced over to his other ally. “You got that, Pandora?”

“I’ve got it!” she called back.

Icarus ran up to Mayes, his spiritual weapon moving past him, but he had to send the sword sideways at the last second to stop the blade from hitting Mayes.

Pandora sent a pair of scorching rays of fire to the one by her, landing the hits as another two beams fired over to the larger one. The big one slashed out at Mayes with its claws as the smaller one bit for Pandora’s ankles. She stepped just out of the way as huge saber teeth snapped right where her foot was.

Mayes flourished their blade, stabbing it up into the larger one’s mouth. There was one last shimmer of moonlight across its fur before it collapsed to the ground, unmoving.

“Good job!” Icarus grinned.

“Thanks,” Mayes nodded.

“Didn’t even need me to come,” he laughed. Turning, he sent out the same spell to force bells into the remaining creature’s mind, but once again, it didn’t seem bothered. He sent his spiritual weapon after it instead, but the cat managed to dodge.

Thinking on Alexander’s teachings again, Pandora sent out a final spell. The creature shrivelled up, its body sinking down to near mummification as it collapsed to the ground.

All three of them paused, quieting their breathing to listen for anything else, but there was nothing.

Icarus moved to inspect the larger one. “What  _ is _ this thing?”

He couldn’t say for sure, but he had heard a few vague religious myths of creatures touched by Gods and Goddesses. Realizing this, he leaned back in shock.

“You okay?” Mayes checked.

“Yeah, um… think this creature was… touched by a God or a Goddess.”

“Wow… Well, Sehanine is the God of the hunt,” Pandora considered.

The fur would definitely be worth a lot, or have some kind of magical property. Icarus considered the animal. “I mean, we’ve got the knife, we can… skin it?”

“I was gonna ask if you thought that would be okay,” Mayes agreed. “Because… starry black armour would be really cool.”

“Maybe… say a thanks to it?” Pandora advised. “Especially given where we are?”

“Yeah,” Icarus nodded. “We can give it a proper farewell.”

“You’re good at doing your rites, Icarus?” Mayes suggested.

“Yeah.”

Icarus made his thanks to Sehanine.

Mayes knelt down with the dagger over the beautiful creature, clasping their hands. “Um… Lady… Sehanine? ...Thank you for this… gift…” they turned to whisper over to Icarus, “Am I doing this okay?”

“Yeah,” Icarus smiled. “Just say your heart.”

Mayes turned back to it. “Um… This is a majestic creature of the hunt, and… As a hunter would want, we will put its parts to good use.”

All three of them felt the moonlight glow a bit stronger over the spot, a shiver running through them.

Pandora looked up to the sky. “Wow…”

“Okay,” Mayes nodded. “Think maybe she heard that.”

“I feel like you have her blessing,” Icarus smiled.

“Thank you, Lady Sehanine,” Pandora offered.

Mayes skinned the creature, collecting the teeth. It wasn’t the cleanest job, but it was such a large beast that they were able to collect a rather large piece of hide, if a bit rugged around the edges.

Icarus moved the bodies out of the camp into a pile nearby. He headed off to bed with Pandora, and Mayes sat up to take watch. They heard a few more small noises throughout the night, but it was peaceful, and nothing threatening approached. They almost felt protected in their spot as they sat, fiddling with a tooth.

Eventually, Mayes took out their paints, absentmindedly sketching a bit as they thought on what tomorrow would bring. Looking down after a few minutes, they realized they had just painted a satyr.

With nothing to do until the centaurs came, they all slept in, waking to a meal of jerky from the feline creatures from the night before.

“I’ve never eaten a lion before,” Pandora commented.

“No, me neither,” Icarus replied.

“No. Usually, the lion eats you,” Mayes teased.

Icarus threw a bit of the slightly mummified feline creature to the snapping turtle. That one hadn’t looked particularly edible to them, but the snapping turtle gobbled it up.

Pandora glanced over at the collection of teeth. “Should we take one of these teeth back for Damen?”

“Yeah, sure,” Icarus agreed.

“Oh, yeah,” Mayes followed. “I mean, I’m sure he has his fair share of lion themed things…”

“But a  _ saber toothed tiger,” _ Pandora pressed.

“True…”

“Yeah, that’d be cool. I think he might like it,” Icarus smiled. “Ah...!”

“What?” Pandora prompted.

“Can I see one of them?”

Pandora handed over a tooth. Icarus wrapped the fur from the golden fleece lion around it. The strands of hair were long enough to make a necklace chain on their own.

“There we go,” Icarus held up the finished piece. “It’s pretty cool, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“A cool good luck token,” Mayes approved.

“Yeah! He might not want it, but we got one now, so.”

“If he doesn’t want it, we’ll keep it,” Pandora reasoned.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“You can keep it,” Mayes followed.

“Yeah. It looks cool.”

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that, though.”

“From two different lions,” Pandora smiled.

Icarus fidgeted a bit. “Well, one was a tiger… Hey, you drew a satyr!”

Mayes stared back at him as Pandora laughed.

“Got your mind on things?” Icarus teased.

Mayes deflected with a knowing look. “Yeah. I think I know what you’d draw if you had a notebook.”

“Well, I can’t draw. So…”

“But I know what you would.”

“Do you?” Icarus challenged with a grin.

Mayes didn’t back down. “Yes. So don’t try it, Icarus.”

Icarus quickly turned, breaking the stare and looking far away.

  
  


Midday rolled around, and they heard the sound of approaching hooves. Before long, they saw Ormasos and a few other centaurs return. They galloped down, stopping just short of their circle, looking over the scene as the students bowed to them.

“Afternoon,” Mayes greeted.

“You survived the night,” Ormasos grinned.

“And there’s spare meat,” Icarus gestured over. “If you’d like it.”

Ormasos’ face shifted, looking impressed. “We will bring those back, if you’re offering them.”

“We are.”

“Yeah, by all means,” Mayes agreed.

“Fine hides,” Ormasos approved.

“A fine campsite,” Pandora returned.

The centaurs moved around, dismantling their camp and clearing the area to leave no remnant behind as the others helped.

“Alright,” Ormasos nodded. “I will take you back to Kalifna.”

“Thank you,” Mayes replied.

They returned through the hills, back to the small camp of the centaurs. It was much quicker on the return trip, the centaurs leading them straight through rather than winding about the trees. It was only about half a mile.

Returning to the camp, they expected to be received with respect, their weapons handed back to them. Instead, they saw Kalifna’s face wrought with concern.

Worried, Icarus looked around for Lileo, but could not find her. “Everything okay?”

“Pick up your weapons,” Kalifna directed.

“Okay...?”

“Lileo has gone up to the tomb alone.”

“Okay. We have to go after her,” Pandora decided.

“Good. I was hoping you would aid us with this.”

“Of course,” three voices returned.

“Quickly then.”

“Yeah, lead the way,” Mayes nodded.

“Lead the way,” Icarus echoed.

Kalifna and Ormasos took them up as the other centaurs stayed behind. They headed around the hills and back up towards the obelisk. As they approached the top of the hill, they saw the various columns and collapsed rocks of what used to be an even larger temple, with a small passageway lined with stones around the outside of it that went into the hill itself. They could see very clearly in the daylight that it had been crammed full of logs, branches, and rocks, matting up the hole like a bird’s nest. Though the remaining entrance was small, it had been recently pushed open, and they understood that Lileo had forced her way inside. She was smaller than the others, and there was no way Kalifna or Ormasos could follow.

“I think she’s in there,” Kalifna pointed.

“We’ll find her,” Icarus assured them. “Don’t worry.”

Before they entered, Kalifna pleaded with them to respect everything inside, begging them to avoid damaging anything. As for the harpies, he warned them not to listen to their song.

“Give you my word, we won’t damage anything,” Icarus promised. Looking around, he grabbed some moss from the rocks. “Put this in your ears,” he advised the others. “It might help. It might not, but it might.”

“Okay,” Pandora agreed.

The two of them did so as Mayes turned back to Kalifna. “What about their song do we need to be worried about?”

“They can lure you in if you hear it,” Kalifna frowned.

“...Okay, yeah,” Mayes took some of the moss.

As they stuffed it in, they found it very effective at blocking the sound out, to the point where they could barely hear one another, or their own movements. They were probably safe from the song, but it would be difficult to communicate with each other.

Icarus gestured for the others to go in, the centaurs waiting at the entrance with large spears. Icarus pulled out his sword and shield, leading them inside.

They crept inside the tomb through a dark tunnel, sliding through small gaps in the harpies' barrage at the front. Immediately entering the small center chamber, they found it to be filled with cobwebs, cracks, and the stink of guano. Bones were scattered about, picked clean of recently fresh flesh. There were some coins scattered across the floor, messily and carelessly leading into another tunnel beyond and down some steps.

They moved towards what they assumed was the main crypt, keeping an eye out for movement. Mayes had the slightest inkling they heard something shuffling around at the bottom, but couldn't discern at all what it was.

They motioned for the others to wait, creeping ahead to scout at the front. It was their first time sneaking with their new elven boots, and although they couldn’t hear to ensure they were being quiet, they almost felt as if they were stepping onto something cushioned with every step, despite the stone beneath them. They moved down silently in the dark, hand on the wall to glimpse forwards, but it was pitch black.

Mayes pointed back at Pandora, signaling her forwards.

“Okay,” Pandora followed behind, stepping over small pebbles to avoid kicking anything down the steps. Creeping down to the bottom, she could see a large tomb, maybe twenty feet in one direction and fifty in the other. There was a stone sarcophagus in the middle, but huge, built for a centaur, with a statue of one on top.

At the back of the room, Lileo was cowering, looking up.

Glancing upwards, Pandora saw dozens of archways in the stone, full of harpies. The harpies appeared to be sleeping, and Lileo was trying to pull her hoof out of something it was stuck in. The harpies had their wings folded around them, and it looked like a flurry of feathers stuffed into the different holes. There was no way of telling the number.

Pandora turned back to the others, gesturing upwards before flapping her arms as wings and feigning sleep.

From far behind, Icarus gestured to himself, before miming the torch with a shrug.

Instead of commenting on the triton’s proposed strategy, Mayes pointed out the path they had taken, signalling him over.

Having watched the other two, Icarus very slowly placed his feet down, arms wrapped around his scalemail so it didn’t shake. Reaching the others, he started mouthing the word  _ light, _ proposing his idea once more.  _ I can’t see! _ he mimed.

_ Neither can I! _ Mayes mimed back.

Icarus suggested his light again.

_ But then they will see! _ Pandora silently protested, pointing back up at the harpies.

_ But if we’re gonna fight them… _ Mayes shrugged.

Pandora shook her head, putting up her hands in surrender.  _ Go on, then… _

Icarus picked up a stone, holding it close to his chest. He sent out a spell that caused the stone to emanate light, but as he held it in his hands, the light remained hidden enough, with a blueish glow shining through the webbing in his fingers. Icarus and Mayes were able to see a bit better, and they noticed the heaps of bones and treasure scattered about the floor, collected from the people the harpies had picked off to eat.

“Time to get to Lileo,” Mayes mumbled.

“I’ll wait here,” Icarus whispered back.

It was hard to notice at first, but as they whispered a bit louder than usual due to the moss in their ears, they realized the acoustics in this space had elevated the sound of their voices. Just as she realized this, Pandora saw one eye open on one of the harpies in an archway. It didn’t look at them, but it had definitely been awoken by them. She put a finger to her lips, desperately signalling the others to hush.

Icarus nodded as Mayes pushed them all back against the wall with one arm. Icarus closed his fingers, dimming the light even further.

The harpy yawned, and tucked its head back under a wing.

_ Should I go get her? _ Mayes mouthed, pointing over to Lileo.  _ Or are we gonna fight these things? _

Pandora pointed at herself instead, shaking her head at Mayes. Very carefully, trying not to step on any bones, she moved quietly across the room. As she got close, she could see that Lileo wasn’t just caught in something, but stuck in some kind of vicious cobweb, keeping her trapped. Suddenly, it became clear that Lileo had been specifically placed as some kind of bait, rather than accidentally trapped.

Pandora held her hands over her mouth, sending a message to Lileo’s mind.  _ “It’s alright, we’ve come to get you! Don’t scream.” _

Lileo startled, looking up and stiling completely.  _ “I’m really, really stuck. Don’t come closer, you’ll get stuck too.” _

Pandora messaged Icarus and Mayes next.  _ “She’s stuck, like really badly stuck. So what are we doing, we’re just fighting these things?” _

_ “Not down here,” _ Icarus returned.  _ “She’ll get hurt.” _

Mayes took a bit of moss out of one ear, doing the same to Icarus. “If you throw that light, and we make a big noise… we could maybe run out? And they’ll follow us?” they whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Once Pandora gets back here?”

“Okay.”

They stuffed the moss back in, and Icarus wiggled his fingers, flashing the light to signal Pandora back.

Pandora nodded, sending a final message to Lileo.  _ “Just sit tight, we’ll come get you. We’re gonna lead them out.” _

_ “Okay!” _ she returned.

Icarus kept flashing the light.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Pandora quietly chided him.

She returned, and Mayes began a silent countdown. As their last finger went down, Icarus allowed the light from the stone to flood the room. More than half a dozen harpies looked up in surprise from their perches, staring down at them.

The three of them ran, Icarus banging on his shield with his sword as he hurried away. Booking it up the stairs, they made for the entrance. They saw six of the fleshy, gross, humanoid figures pursue them. The harpies had bird's feet and black feathers over their skin, their heads ending in monstrous faces, with feathers sticking out of the backs of their heads, sharp fangs, and deadly claws on their hands and feet, their wings attached to the bottom of their arms. The six smaller ones launched off their perches directly after them, while one larger one turned its head out, flying slower behind.

Icarus and Mayes came tearing out of the tunnel, sliding and climbing through the barricade at the front. At the bottom of the steps, Mayes could see Kalifna had remained, while the other centaur had gone back to the camp for backup. The harpies were right behind them.

Mayes turned around, firing at one with their crossbow. A few swooped past Pandora, who had fallen behind in the tunnel, the harpies flying through and ahead to follow the others. The crossbow bolt struck the nearest one through the shoulder, jutting out through the other side. Mayes jumped down to Kalifna, trying to lead them out.

One harpy flew straight down after Mayes, Icarus trying and failing to attack it as it swooped past. Another came for the triton as still another ambushed Pandora inside the tunnel, catching her in the first chamber. One pecked at Icarus with its beaked face, teeth sticking through it, but he managed to dodge. It came at him with the claws on its feet instead, slashing into him. Another bit at Mayes, tearing into them with their claws as they half dodged.

The one pursuing Pandora folded their wings behind it, gliding through the tiny tunnel and pecking at her with its beak and scratching out with its claws.

Icarus summoned his spiritual weapon, sending it out to a harpy before swinging in with the physical duplicate. Already, the harpies that had been injured were looking pretty rough. “I don’t think these things are as tough as they look!” Icarus called out. He positioned himself at the entrance, slashing out as the creatures pressed through.

Two more harpies came screeching out of the tunnel, squeezing past each other, black feathers exploding off them as they went, while another rounded on Pandora. A few more harpies attacked Icarus, their eyes flashing red as they flew into a frenzy. He bounced their first few attacks off his shield before one managed to slash in at him.

Inside, another harpy scratched at Pandora. She was right at the entrance, but the harpies were all squashed up at the exit, preventing her escape. Clapping her hands together, she sent out a fire spell to clear the path. One of the harpies by Icarus smouldered into ash as the others were singed. “Good job, Pandora!” he called.

“Get out of the entrance!” she urged. “I can’t get out!”

Outside, Kalifna reared up onto his back legs, stomping his hooves down onto a harpy as he crushed it to death. Mayes blinked at him in surprise, holding their tiny crossbow as they offered a thumbs up.

The larger one, still inside, stopped about ten feet short of Pandora and began to sing. Icarus was able to shake it off, as was Kalifna, but the other two instantly stopped to listen, as if it was the most beautiful thing they had ever heard. Mayes started to climb back up to get closer to the source of the song.

Another of the smaller harpies inside slashed at Pandora. As it did, Pandora snapped out of her trance from the shock of the blow, shaking her head as the smaller harpy snapped its jaws at her. She could hear the song even through the moss in her ears, and glancing around, she saw Mayes walking in a daze towards the sound.

Holding up his holy symbol, another of the harpies by Icarus was singed by an explosion of radiant light. His spiritual weapon whizzed out to follow, and the harpy went down. The other harpy looked infuriated, and flew up to rest on the top of the temple.

Yet another attacked Pandora before flying past. She tried and failed to swipe out at it with her dagger, and the harpy flew high over Icarus, expelling itself out the entrance and flapping in the air above Kalifna.

Pandora shot out another jet of fire at the remaining harpies, stabbing in the dagger at the nearest one. The dagger burned with the spell as she thrust it into the creature’s gut, and it died.

“Come on, Pandora!” Icarus called. “Get out!”

Pandora ran out of the tunnel and down the steps.

Kalifna pulled out a longbow, shooting up at the harpy circling him. The arrow went completely wide.

The larger one flew out of the tunnel behind Icarus, getting right in his face. He felt a very familiar feeling seeping into his mind, trying to take over. For a second, the harpy’s form shifted. Rather than the grotesque large creature with wings, it was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. He felt himself about to drop his weapon from his hand, but he managed to shake the feeling off. “No no no, not again, not again…”

Angry, the mother harpy clawed at him. As she made contact, she was immediately electrocuted, the force of the retaliation just as powerful as her claws. The gigantic bird was pushed back by the force of it.

“Not again,” Icarus repeated, pressing out a hand towards her as the spell settled.

Mayes, still entranced by it, walked past him and into the tunnel.

Icarus looked after them, confused. “Mayes?”

One of the harpies perched on the top of the structure swooped down, ripping into Icarus. His spiritual weapon flew uselessly past as he turned back to the tunnel, ignoring his attacker to send another bolt of lightning down the tunnel for the mother. Adjusting his aim at the last second to avoid Mayes, the shot went wide. “Mayes, snap out of it!”

The other, flying around Kalifna and Pandora’s heads, bit at them both. While Kalifna dodged, it managed to snap at Pandora. She swung her pendulum, and the harpy crumpled and died as the sound of familiar dolorous bells filled its mind.

She turned back to the tunnel. “Mayes!”

Kalifna looked to her, shaking his head. “I can’t get in there, but I’ll do what I can.”

She gave him an appreciative nod. “Thank you.”

Inside, the larger harpy leaned into Mayes, speaking in Common to whisper in their ear. “They’re trying to destroy the nest…  _ Kill them.” _

As Mayes turned around to obey, she raked her claws over them. The pain didn’t even register in their mind, and they just accepted the feeling as the talons dug into them.

Mayes stepped forwards to defend the mother, engaging Icarus. Swinging out with their blade, they carved into him, dragging the sharp point deep through his armour. As they made contact, Icarus let out a small shock of electricity, pushing them back.

As the lightning struck, they were jolted back to their own head. Looking back over to see what they had done, Icarus seemed about ready to drop from the near-deadly impact of Mayes’ sword.

Turning back to the harpy, Mayes threw their greek sword at the creature, landing the blade into it. “I’m coming back for that,” Mayes snapped, staring it in the eyes.

The harpy shrieked in ungodly laughter.

The last of the smaller harpies flew at Icarus, digging talons into him. The triton staggered back, pressing a hand to his chest as he gave himself a boost of his own healing magic. “Okay…” he took a deep breath, and then whirled back on Mayes with an angry finger.  _ “Don’t _ fucking do that again!”

He slashed at the one near him with his sword as Pandora took out her bag, throwing a bit of powder on the ground. A huge ball of fire soared out, incinerating the smaller one on impact as the spell flew forward to burn at the matriarch harpy inside, who shrieked in pain, but was still standing.

“We’ve got to give her everything we have!” Pandora yelled out.

“I’m gonna!” Icarus replied.

Kalifna readied himself as the mother harpy flew out of the tunnel and into the air. Shooting out with his longbow, an arrow pierced up and into her. She flew down to attack him, but he managed to dodge, causing his next few shots to go wide as he evaded her.

“You’ll never take me down, Kalifna!” she rasped, cackling at him from the air.

In silent rage, Mayes retrieved their sword, swiping twice at the harpy. Unfortunately, in their anger, they weren’t able to land a hit.

Icarus let out another burst of radiant light, illuminating the harpy in a mystical glow. Sending in the ghostly replica of Lorakai’s blade, the sword carved into the harpy. “Don’t you  _ dare _ try and mess with our heads!”

Pandora let out another enormous ball of fire, throwing down the powder and sculpting her spell safely around her allies. Mayes was right up close as the flames bent around them, soaring upwards. The flames engulfed the harpy, an eruption of fire smouldering at its feathers.

Kalifna kicked at the harpy in the air with his hooves, but it ignored the blows, flying in for Mayes instead. Slashing claws out to strike against them, she flew forty feet up into the air. Mayes followed her with a crossbow bolt, the projectile lodging into her leg.

Icarus lifted up his holy weapon, shining a beam of light up towards the creature. As the harpy was bathed in radiant light, the ghostly duplicate of Lorakai’s sword struck straight and true into her heart, piercing her through as the harpy fell down backwards. Her body flopped down to the ground, arms spread out with feathered wings beneath them. She laid there, blood seeping out into the dirt.

“Well done, Icarus!” Pandora cheered.

“Thanks!” he laughed. “Well done, everyone!”

“Well done, Mayes!” Pandora offered.

Mayes just frowned, staring off.

“Oh! We need to go help her!” Icarus remembered. He turned, running back into the tunnel.

It took him a short while, but he was eventually able to help Lileo out of the viscous goop trapping her in place, seemingly sprayed there on purpose. She was able to get her hooves free, leaving sticky marks on the stone as she walked back across the floor.

She sighed in relief. “Thank you.”

“It’s okay,” Icarus grinned.

Mayes quietly investigated the scattered treasure, still feeling quite upset. In their anger, they weren’t able to find more than a handful of copper pieces.

As Pandora and Icarus checked over the place together, they had much more luck. None of the treasure seemed to belong to the centaurs, rather to travellers the harpies had terrorized during their stay. Pandora gathered 22 silver pieces while Icarus collected a larger bounty, taking 10 silver, 8 gold, a panflute, a collection of popular bardic tales in an old, nasty leather bag, and a potion of healing.

As Lileo stepped out of the tunnel, Kalifna embraced her. “You had me so worried,” he sighed.

“I’m sorry!” she returned, her voice on the verge of breaking. “I just… I thought I could do something!”

“It’s okay. Lucky we had these three to help.”

Icarus stepped out of the tomb, nodding to Lileo. “I think it was incredibly brave of you. You stood up for what you believed, and you tried to stand up for your home. That’s commendable.”

She smiled slightly. “Thank you. That’s one way to see it. I feel like a bit of an idiot.”

“Not at all,” Pandora assured her.

“No,” Icarus agreed. “Your heart was in the right place.”

Kalifna stepped forwards, addressing them. “You stay here and rest. We’ll gather the others, and bring our supplies up here, where they should be.”

“Absolutely,” Pandora nodded.

“Sure,” Mayes followed.

Kalifna regarded them once more. “...Thank you.”

“Don’t worry,” Icarus smiled.

Kalifna bowed respectfully to them, and they bowed back. He took Lileo back down the hills, towards their camp.

As they stepped out of sight, Icarus let out a deep sigh, turning to Mayes. “You can pack a punch!”

Mayes silently stepped forwards, wrapping their arms around him in a hug. Icarus hugged back, and Pandora quickly joined in. Mayes was a bit surprised by the addition, but didn’t back away.

“I’m sorry the only decent hit I landed in that fight was on you,” they apologized.

“It’s okay. It doesn’t feel personal,” Icarus grinned. “Was that for teasing you?”

Mayes grinned back. “You know, maybe on some subconscious level, yes. Maybe.”

Pandora sat down heavily. “Shall we take a rest?”

“Yeah,” the other two agreed.

It would take awhile for the centaurs to gather up their supplies anyway, and they were exhausted. After an hour, the centaurs returned with their belongings, setting up much more comfortably. It was clear that it would take awhile to rebuild the home they once had, but they were all very grateful. Lileo was very sheepish as she talked to some of the others, who would ruffle her hair and warn her not to go running off again, especially at her age. Centaurs physically aged the same way as humans, so the trio guessed she was about sixteen.

Eventually, they found themselves sitting on the stone ruins as the centaurs settled in for the evening.

Kalifna made his way over to them. “I’m extremely grateful for what you’ve done.”

“Not a problem,” Icarus smiled. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you. It means a lot to us. I will absolutely help you in any way that I can.”

“Thank you,” Pandora replied.

“Thank you. I appreciate that,” Mayes followed.

“I can help you over onto the Ethereal Plane for a short while,” he offered. “I warn you not to look any spirits you see there in the eye. There can be some nasty side effects.”

“Okay…”

“Anything we should be aware of like that?” Pandora checked. “Like, what it might do?”

“It’s said that if you look a spirit in the eye, it can age you,” he frowned.

“Oh… Okay.”

“I don’t care for that,” Icarus declared.

Pandora smiled a bit at the triton. “I don’t care for that at all.”

“Did the three of you want to go together?” Kalifna asked.

“Yeah, we’re going with Mayes.”

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed. “We’re not letting Mayes do this alone.”

“You’ll have, at most, an hour,” Kalifna warned. “But I will still be able to see you. You only need to signal me when you wish for me to bring you back.”

“Okay,” Mayes nodded.

Icarus looked to the others. “Should we decide what we’re doing before we go in there? Are we trying to… destroy this ghost? Set it free? Talk to it?”

Mayes crossed their arms, looking sadly at the ground. “It’s someone from my home, Icarus. I want to talk to it.”

“Sorry…”

“Let’s see what it wants first,” Pandora agreed.

Icarus squeezed Mayes’ arm.

  
  


The centaurs lit a great fire in the center of the ruins. They were asked to sit around it. As they sat next to each other, they were given a warm liquid to drink out of a small wooden cup, fragrant and reminiscent of jasmine. Kalifna walked up to the fire and began to sing.

It was a deep and woeful song about their greatest warrior, Vatinius, who fought with the Errani Legions in the War of the Three Crowns. Vatinius was a cleric, and Kalifna’s song told the story of how Vatinius prayed to their God for divine intervention when fighting off a titan who could walk into the Ethereal Plane. Their God granted them the ability to see into the Ethereal Plane, and wield weapons into it from the Mortal Realm, but there was a grave cost of never resting. They would walk forever in the Ethereal Plane after the titan was beaten.

Vatinius’s descendants have always had true sight ever since, never resting, always standing sentinel to the border Ethereal. As he sung, Kalifna anointed each of their heads with a smear of oil from a small bowl he carried. When he was done, he sat at the fire, folding his legs under his haunches. He continued to sing until his voice lulled the trio into a state of near sleep.

Suddenly, they were no longer in the Material Realm. They opened their eyes to a misty, fog bound space, the ruins of the temple still visible around them but barley, the landscape muted and indistinct. The colors of the area blurred into each other, and the edges turned fuzzy. They could see no further than sixty feet in any direction. It felt as though they were viewing Kalifna and his temple through distorted, frosted glass.

They found themselves immediately light, their feet lifted from the ground as they floated in the air. To each other, they appeared translucent. All at once, they could once more see the man clinging to Mayes’ back.

The figure raised his head, and spoke in a raspy voice. “You’re here…”

Icarus blinked in surprise. “You can talk?”

Mayes folded their arms around themselves, their voice slightly shaky. “Who are you?”

“...My name is Daichi Tanaka.”

Mayes thought back on the name, and vaguely remembered overhearing it as one of the people who had gone missing in their area. It wasn’t the first disappearance that they had heard of, but they had heard the name only a short while before they had left to study on the mainland. “You went… You went missing.”

“Do you know that name, Mayes?” Pandora prompted.

“I said before, people go…  _ missing, _ on Vishima…”

“Yeah,” Icarus frowned.

Mayes glanced back at the figure on their shoulder. “You’re one of the more recent ones, right? Well… six years ago…”

“Has it really been six years?” the voice rasped.

“Time moves differently on planes,” Icarus consoled them.

“Six years for me,” Mayes explained.

Daichi shook their head slowly. “It feels like a lifetime. And no time at all.”

“...What…” Mayes rubbed their face, dropping their head. “I don’t even know where to start… Why are you… on me? What… what made you…  _ look _ like that?”

“What happened to you?” Icarus wondered.

“I just don’t understand…” Mayes took the hands from their face, shaking their head. “I’m… I’m so sorry…”

Daichi turned to stare into Mayes. “I was… killed by a monster. You got away.”

Icarus looked between the two of them. “What?”

“You mean, Mayes was… there?” Pandora guessed. “When it happened?”

“I was a merchant’s son, in Vishima,” the spirit continued. “My father’s store was raided and burned. I sought out the raiders. Found a connection to one of the land owners. But they came for me, and they tricked me into the woods.”

“So you didn’t go missing,” Icarus frowned. “You were taken.”

Mayes stared off. “That’s what happens.”

“What do you mean, that’s what happens?”

The spirit fixed Icarus with a grave stare. “People go  _ missing, _ in Vishima.”

Icarus shared a look with Pandora as the realization settled. “How many people were with you?” Pandora asked.

“Eight.”

“...Is any of this… starting to come back to you, Mayes?”

Mayes had nothing but the same flashes. The bonfire, the figures...

“Is this the time you think you might have forgotten?” Icarus probed.

“It has to be…” Mayes whispered. “The… there was a bonfire?”

“Yes,” Daichi confirmed. “We were lured there. It has… its ways…”

“What monster is this?” Icarus pushed.

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t know,” Mayes echoed, their voice quiet and scared.

“Do you remember what it looked like?” Pandora tentatively pressed.

“Big,” Mayes gulped. “I just know it was big.”

“Blue skin,” Daichi added. “ A hulking creature. Just a twisted…  _ evil _ face.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Pandora continued. “How are… How are you here? As in like, how are you linked with Mayes?”

Daichi’s eyes travelled over the space, recalling memories as if they had been shaken loose. “I remember… the bonfire. The creature in the treeline… And it attacked us. Slaughtered us. Eating our flesh while we were still alive.”

Pandora cringed, but Daichi continued on, their eyes darting to Mayes. “You left us there to die.”

Mayes blinked, slowly raising their head to turn to him. “...What was I supposed to do?”

“You wanted Mayes to die as well?” Icarus defended.

Daichi set what was left of his jaw in a frown. “...I reached out to you. Grabbed at you as you were fleeing the scene. For a long time, as you carried me out of the woods… I thought I was free. But my… my body must have stayed there.”

A heavy sadness fell over the group as they listened to the story, looking to the ground.

“...What is it that you want?” Pandora asked.

“...I’ve tried to let go,” Daichi replied. “I don’t want to be here, but… I feel I must be holding on to a hatred, for that creature.”

“Resentment through Mayes,” Icarus nodded. “Towards the creature that killed you. Unfinished business.”

“I fear I won’t pass over. Stuck here, forever.”

“We can help,” Icarus promised. “And we can help you,” he nodded to Mayes.

“Mhm,” Pandora agreed.

Mayes slowly raised their head again. “You said… you found something out. Raiders were connected to the land owners, the Lords?”

“Lord Sato,” Daichi glowered.

Mayes knew that name, one of the local Lords over a farming area. “...My… My grandfather, he used to work for the Lords in the city. One of his elite guard. He stopped in his old age, but some of the city guard threatened him that they’d make him disappear.”

“Why?” Pandora worried.

“I don’t know. But…”

Daichi gave a bitter laugh. “That’s how things work in Vishima.”

“...So what, they…” Mayes shook their head, their voice rising with anger. “...Round up people who find things out, and just… send them to get eaten in the woods!?”

“I don’t know. I can’t say.”

Mayes put their head in their hands again, letting out another heavy sigh.

“Mayes, it’s okay,” Pandora consoled them.

“You said you were led out there, Mayes?” Icarus probed. “By your friend?”

Mayes brushed him off. “Jiro just wanted to go look in the woods for awhile.”

“This creature messes with your mind,” Daichi warned.

Mayes blinked away the start of tears. “His mom…”

“What about his mom?” Pandora asked.

“...She went missing. God…”

“Was Jiro there?” Icarus looked between Mayes and the spirit for an answer. “At the bonfire?”

“No, he… he ran away. Long before that,” Mayes replied.

“I don’t know enough to seek out this creature,” Daichi continued. “But I will help you if I can.”

Suddenly, Mayes snapped up their head. “The Lords of Vishima are coming to Erran soon.”

Daichi’s eyes widened triumphantly for a moment.

“We have been offered a potential contract to escort them,” Mayes explained.

Daichi slowly turned his head, examining Mayes’ face. “...You and I are connected. You can’t shake me any more than I’d like to shake you.”

“I  _ want _ to save my home,” Mayes declared. “More than anything.”

“I can give you strength.”

Mayes regarded him warily. “...What do you mean?”

“There are things I can do in this form. I think I can give you that power. Let me get my vengeance,” he begged. “Then you can be rid of me.”

Mayes nodded, their voice no more than a whisper. “Yeah.”

“...Then it’s a deal.”

“Whatever this is, whatever is… corrupting our home. We’ll get it.”

The barest hint of a smile lifted Daichi’s face. “We’ll get it.”

Daichi’s form shimmered, fading slightly before it merged with Mayes. The other two stepped back at the sight, and Mayes felt a chill running through their body, followed by a strange strength. They had never cast anything arcane before, but they recognized the sensation.

“...Are you okay?” Pandora worried.

“...Yeah,” they replied. “Real good.”

“We’ve got you,” Icarus assured them.

“Yeah.”

“We’ll go get that contract the moment we get back.”

“We’ve got exams to worry about as well,” Mayes rolled their shoulders, shaking the emotion from their eyes. “We’re good now.”

Icarus gave a slight grin. “We’ve got a lot to worry about.”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Nope.”

“Don’t sweat.”

Pandora held up her hands, still very much thinking about it. “Just let me get this straight while we’re here… Are you going to be telling Citra about this? They’re going to want to know, when we get back, what happened.”

Mayes tilted their head from side to side, considering. “Yeah. We can talk about it. It’s been… handled.”

“I’m pretty sure Kalifna can see what we’re doing anyway, so we’re gonna get back eventually,” Icarus added.

“I know, but when I said  _ what just happened, _ I mean…” Pandora pointed repeatedly at Mayes’ back with wide eyes,  _ “What just happened!?” _

Mayes rubbed their arms. “I’ll talk to her about it. Citra’s very aware of what my goals are.”

“Okay, okay… Like, I mean, do you want us not to say anything…?”

“Pandora, I will talk to her about it,” they repeated, the usual assertiveness back in their voice.

“Okay…”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Pandora was quite uneased about what she had just witnessed. Icarus went to hold her hand, expecting their ghostly forms to pass through each other, but was surprised to learn he could touch her easily.

The disembodied voice of Daichi echoed around them. “We can’t do anything from here.”

Icarus looked into the air. “Will we… still be able to contact you? On the other plane? Material Plane?”

“I can’t say.”

“Okay,” Mayes nodded. “Well, before we go back, I’m just… I’m sorry that this happened to you. But… we’ll sort it out.”

“When we kill that thing… that will be the justice I require.”

“And the island?” Mayes prompted.

This time, Daichi was silent.

Mayes swallowed, and nodded again. “Let’s head back.”

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed.

They signalled to Kalifna, and one by one he moved to each of them, wiping the oil from their foreheads to bring them back into their physical bodies.

Pandora came back with a gasp.

“Oh, I feel heavy,” Icarus stretched. “Does anyone else feel heavy?”

Mayes still felt the strange new strength coursing through their body.

Pandora shook herself out. “That was weird.”

“How are you doing?” Icarus looked over Mayes.

“...I feel good,” they replied.

Kalifna regarded them. “I trust that you got what you needed?”

“More than that,” Mayes replied. “Thank you.”

“Here,” he pulled out a small vial of oil, handing it over to Mayes. “With this, you can travel back there once. Just one of you. For one hour, one time.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you for everything,” Icarus followed.

“Thank you Kalifna,” Pandora echoed.

He nodded. “Our debt is settled. You can stay here tonight. Tomorrow, we will help you back to the town.”

“Thank you,” Icarus replied.

“Get some rest.”

The three of them sat around the bonfire for the rest of the evening before they slept, watching it die down to embers.

  
  



	13. Affairs of the Heart, Episode Thirteen

The morning rolled around, and breakfast was served with dried meats, fruits, and fresh pieces of saber tooth tiger.

Kalifna came over to them, bowing his head as the trio bowed back. “We have decided we can give you passage back to the town.”

“Are you sure?” Icarus replied.

“Of course.”

“Thank you, that’s very appreciated.”

“Very much,” Pandora agreed.

“The hills can be confusing,” Kalifna explained. “We want to make sure you get back safe.”

“We appreciate that,” Icarus smiled.

“That’s very kind of you,” Mayes followed.

“Omesos, Leileo, and I will ride you back.”

The three of them stared back at the centaur, not sure if they could ask the question.

Icarus slowly nodded. “Okay…”

“When you say…  _ ride…” _ Pandora trailed off.

“This is not something we offer easily,” Kalifna replied. “But… we will take one of you each.”

Mayes gave a quick nod. “Okay.”

Pandora blinked in surprise. “Wow, thank you.”

Kalifna appraised them. “Okay. Whenever you’re ready?”

“I believe we’re ready whenever,” Icarus grinned. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Thank you for your help. You’ve made allies here today.”

Kalifna gathered up Omesos and Leileo. The three of them got down on their haunches, and the students climbed respectfully aboard.

Kalifna turned to Icarus on his back. “Have any of you ever ridden before?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes, but not like this,” Pandora replied.

“Like, twice,” Mayes admitted.

“Forget everything you know,” Kalifna explained. “Just hold on, and do not kick your heels in or I will throw you off.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Icarus promised.

The centaurs slowly stood from the ground. They didn’t feel quite like regular horses, but they were up there securely with their belongings. It was quite taller than a typical horse as well, and looking down at the ground, their legs dangled freely.

“Okay. Don’t fall off,” Kalifna warned.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Icarus repeated with a grin.

The three centaurs took off at speed down the side of the hills, moving from a canter to a gallop through the dust. It felt completely different to riding a horse, but more than anything they were just desperately clinging on, trying not to slide off the back.

They headed through the hills much faster than they had arrived, riding down to the border of the town where the centaurs were just out of sight of the townsfolk. About a quarter mile off, the centaurs let them down.

Mayes carefully maneuvered onto the grass. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, I think,” Pandora laughed nervously.

“Thank you, that was exhilarating,” Icarus smiled.

“Just…” Mayes shook their head, looking to Kalifna with sincerity. “Thanks for everything.”

“We do hope this works out for you,” he nodded back.

“More than you can ever know. Thank you.”

“And, if you’re ever in need of us again,” Icarus offered, “Don’t hesitate to contact us.”

Kalifna gave a nod. “And us.”

“Appreciate it.”

Kalifna bowed his head once more, and then the centaurs turned, riding off into the hills. Mayes gave them a little salute as they went, watching them go. The group stared off after the centaur tails flicking up behind, the dust rising beneath their hooves as the trio slowly came to grips with what had just happened.

They were back in Eras Minorix.

“We should see when the next ship is going out to the Mainland,” Pandora advised.

“Definitely,” Icarus agreed.

“Yeah. Um…” Mayes tilted their head from side to side. “Can we just… Can we make one stop, first?”

Icarus grinned, feigning confusion. “Wherever would you want to go?”

“I just… Just follow,” they urged, heading down into the streets to look for the massage parlour. It took about another half hour as they wandered around the streets, not quite sure where to find it.

Pandora and Icarus hung back, whispering to each other.

“Do you think… Do you think it’s, uh…?” Icarus grinned.

“Yes it is,” Pandora laughed. “It is.”

Eventually, Mayes found it down a back street, a small wooden shop with a sign that read  _ Salon, _ and a wooden carved sign hanging outside of two satyr girls dancing around a maypole.

A sign read that it was open, and Mayes pressed in, the bell at the door ringing behind them as they passed.

Looking up from the counter, they saw what they figured must be the twins’ mother. She was an older satyr woman with longer blonde hair coming in thick waves all the way down to her waist, wearing a small white top. She sat behind the counter, fluffy ears pricking up to turn at the bell.

Mayes waved in a tentative greeting. “Hi…”

“Can I help you?”

Mayes blinked, stunned to a momentary pause by how alluring her voice was. “...Um… is Sasu here?”

“She is.”

Mayes voice crept steadily higher. “Can I speak to her please?”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“...No…?”

“What’s your name?”

“Mayes.”

The woman’s eyes lit up for a moment. “Oh. Just wait here.”

“Okay.”

She turned, disappearing down a corridor behind the counter.

As the three of them were left alone, Pandora and Icarus stared silently at Mayes, grinning.

“Don’t,” they chided the pair.

“We’re not!” Pandora protested.

“He is!” Mayes accused, pointing to the triton.

Icarus held up his hands defensively. “What am I doing?”

“Just…! Just...” Mayes sighed. “Just play it cool,” they whispered.

Icarus looked back at Pandora, shaking his head. “I didn’t do anything! I’m just looking at you, I haven’t- I’ve not said a single thing, since we’ve gone in here.”

Mayes squinted back at him. “You’re making me more nervous than I need to be right now.”

Icarus gasped in mock offense. “Just by existing? Wow… We can leave.”

“You don’t have to- No no! Don’t!”

“Yeah, we can leave if we’re making you really uncomfortable-”

“Yeah, if you need to be alone,” Pandora teased.

“No- No, don’t!” Mayes backtracked.

As Pandora and Icarus messed with Mayes, they heard the sounds of multiple hooves coming back down the corridor.

“Shh,” Icarus bumped Mayes’ shoulder. “Play it cool.”

“Oh, shut up,” they whispered back.

Out came the mother, followed by Troke, and finally, Sasu. Sasu came flying past the counter, lifting it up to run out. “Mayes!”

Mayes’ eyebrows shot up at the sight of the incoming satyr. “Hi!”

Sasu jumped on them, wrapping her arms around their neck. “Hi!”

“Hi!” Mayes returned the hug, setting them down. “Sorry we didn’t come back sooner, we had business in the hills.”

“That’s okay, you said you were gonna go up there. I didn’t think you’d be back this soon!”

“Well, gotta get back to school, and studying and stuff, so…”

“Oh, of course…”

“Yeah, exams, and… whatnot. Um… Can I talk to you outside for a second?”

Sasu smiled wide. “Sure.”

Troke leaned over to watch, and her mother batted her around the ear.

Sasu followed Mayes outside, and they took her hand.

Pandora watched them go, urging Icarus to stay and wait in the shop with her. “Leave them to it.”

  
  


Mayes took Sasu outside, lingering in the street. “So… uh…”

Sasu grinned, rocking herself slightly back and forth. “So…”

“So, you’re really cute, and the other night was… really fun, and…”

Sasu bit her lip, beaming.

“...I need to go back to Erran, to study and stuff,” Mayes frowned.

Sasu completely deflated.

“Um, but… I can visit?” Mayes offered.

The grin crept back. “Yeah?”

“If you wanted to, like- ”

“If you wanted to…”

“ -give something a try?”

Mayes turned their head to the ground, looking up at them with nervous eyes. Sasu’s mouth dropped open for a moment, and she smiled to herself, excitedly bouncing her head from side to side. “Are you asking me out?”

“...Yeah…”

“Like, properly?” Sasu pushed a bit of blonde hair back behind her ear.

Mayes gave her hand a little squeeze, steeling themselves. “Yes, I’m asking if you would like to be my girlfriend.”

Sasu squealed.

Icarus and Pandora heard the squeal from inside, and they pressed up against the shop window to look. Sasu’s back was to them, but Mayes could definitely see them. The pair each flashed Mayes an enthusiastic double thumbs up. Mayes did their best to keep a straight face, ignoring them.

“...Well yeah, obviously!” Sasu answered, still beaming.

Mayes gave a nod, swallowing heavily. “Sweet. Cool…”

“So, do you have to go now?”

“Well, we need to find out when the next boat is, so we’ll be in town for a little while?”

“I’ll come to the docks with you?”

“I’d like that,” Mayes agreed.

Sasu gave a little giggle, still gently rocking herself from side to side. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, we should spend a bit more time together.”

“Let me just go tell my sister she’s gotta cover my shift.”

“Okay.”

Mayes gave her a little peck on the cheek, and waited outside for her to return. As Sasu turned, Pandora and Icarus spun around very quickly, trying their best to act casual.

Sasu shut the door behind her, leaning against it. She glanced to Pandora and Icarus, giggling to herself.

“Good news?” Icarus grinned.

“...I’m just gonna hang out with you guys for a bit.”

“I’d like that.”

“Cool,” Pandora smiled.

Sasu went over to the counter, her tail flicking excitedly. “Troke, you wouldn’t mind covering my shift, would you?” she pleaded, trying her best to look sympathetic.

Her sister sat back, leaning on her hand and raising a brow in amusement. “Uh-huh.”

“Pretty please? I’ll owe you… covered shifts for six months?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Mmmmm….. And some cake?”

“Fine. Have fun.”

Troke grinned over to Pandora and Icarus. She didn’t look like she minded covering at all.

“Okay, great!” Sasu grinned. “Let’s go then. Bye mom!” she called.

“Nice to meet you!” Pandora and Icarus waved.

“Bye,” the mother smiled.

The two of them froze for a beat as they heard that voice again, and quickly scurried out of the shop.

Sasu hurried back to Mayes. “Okay!”

“Okay, let’s go,” Mayes smiled back.

“Sure,” Icarus grinned.

“To the docks?” Pandora prompted.

“Yeah,” Mayes confirmed.

“Okay.”

Mayes walked slow. Pandora pulled Icarus ahead, allowing the other two to meander their way to the docks. As the couple lingered behind, holding hands, Pandora and Icarus felt a bit like third wheels.

They headed back through the town square where the festival was, which was all now completely cleared to the usual cobbled streets, with the large statue where they had met the bard before, and a wide open stretch of square. As they went, they caught a glimpse of a couple of Delphos uniforms heading down towards the docks. Icarus whistled to get their attention, and the group turned.

The first of the group was a hobgoblin in their mid-twenties. Mayes recognized them as Theron Esperes, another student in Domus Callidus. They were lean, reaching about 5’9”, with a very athletic body and dark brown hair styled in an undercut that pulled to a neat plait all the way down one side. Theron had yellow eyes, and really dark red fur, with white freckles across their face.

As Icarus whistled, they turned around and waved, looking pleasantly surprised as Mayes gave a little salute in greeting.

“Hey!” Icarus grinned.

Theron stopped the other two in their group. One was a fire genasi, with dark, ashen skin, and cracks of reddish orange light showing through it like a volcano, giving the appearance of lava under magma starting to cool. She stood at about 5’8”, with bright orange eyes, and her hair in long, thick dreadlocks that went from black to reddish at the ends like lit coal. She had a thick, stocky body type, with trinkets and twine wrapped into her dreads. Icarus recognized her as Atalia Katsaros, another member of House Virtus.

Also with them, and much shorter, was a half-elf with soft, slender features, making them look quite young, possibly only in their late teens. She had long red hair braided behind her back, bright blue eyes, and pale skin. As she turned around, they caught the sight of a scar on her collarbone. She only came up to just below the shoulder of the other two. The trio vaguely knew her by name, Alcyone Karras, a third year Anterus student they had seen working in the infirmary a few times before.

As the hobgoblin waved, the group stopped to wait for the other trio to catch up.

“Theron, hi,” Mayes greeted.

“Hi!”

“How’s it going? We heard you guys were out on a contract.”

“Oh, you did?”

“Yeah, some of the townsfolk said that other students had been through.”

“Yeah, we’ve just cleared up. Going back.”

“Well, we should go back together,” Icarus grinned. “We’re heading back, too.”

“Good idea,” Pandora agreed.

“Sure,” Theron nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Are you guys all done? You’re ready to leave?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“What were you guys doing? If you don’t mind us asking,” Mayes wondered.

“Oh, we were um, dealing with a…” they waved a hand. “We can tell you about it when we walk, come on, let’s go.”

“Sure.”

As they walked, Icarus introduced himself to them all, and they returned in kind. Theron whistled as they walked, and a small black kite bird flew down to land on their shoulder. They introduced the bird as Alario.

The group made their way back through the town and towards the docks. As they went, the other students explained that they had been inland, closer to Eras Majorix, where they had been negotiating with a clan of bollywogs.

Icarus’s jaw dropped.  _ “Please _ tell me how that went. Please.”

The other group laughed.

“Well,” Atalia explained, “Turns out they’d been making some havoc in Eras Majorix, but they decided they’d been sort of swept out of there, and they were making their way over here hoping to raise some hell. Um, but we were just gonna try and convince them to leave, I don’t know, send them on their way… We didn’t really want to, you know, disrupt their clan. But turns out, that Eras Majorix actually encouraged them to come here. Did you know there’s like, a huge rivalry between these two towns?”

“No,” Pandora and Icarus chorused.

“Well, yeah. Big, big rivalry. And they were actually  _ sending _ the bollywogs to this town, to like… smash in shop windows, and cause some hell.”

“Huh,” Pandora frowned. “So what did you do?”

The small half-elf piped up, playing with her long red braid. “Well, we just… You know, we just peacefully talked to them, and… convinced them to go find a new home.”

“That’s great!”

“It took awhile, but, you know… they didn’t really want to do any actual harm. They were just…”

“Here to cause a ruckus?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, well good job that you managed to get it all done!” Icarus grinned. “That’s awesome.”

“Especially without any fighting,” Pandora agreed.

“Yeah!”

“Mhm,” the half-elf smiled. “Nobody even raised a weapon, so.”

“That’s so good,” Pandora praised.

“Awesome,” Mayes agreed.

“It felt good,” the half-elf shrugged.

Icarus beamed down at her. “That’s really impressive.”

“Thanks…” she looked a bit flustered at being complimented on a job well done. “Um, we were told we could get one of the fishing boats back.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Mayes confirmed.

Pandora looked out at the boats. “I don’t know what time they’ll be leaving or anything, so… I guess if we ask around at the docks?”

“Yeah,” Icarus grinned over to Mayes. “I’m sure you’re in no hurry to move on just yet.”

“...No, it’s alright,” they replied, glancing to Sasu.

Flickers of spark appeared under Atalia’s skin, looking over to the satyr. “Yeah, who is this?”

“Uh, this is… my girlfriend.”

“Oh…?”

Icarus’s head whipped around to Pandora, eyes wide.

“Be cool, be cool!” Pandora quietly hushed him.

“None of you think I can be cool!” he protested.

Theron gave the couple an approving nod, oblivious to the whispered conversation. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”

“I do now,” Mayes replied.

“Well, nice to meet you. Are you gonna be bringing her to the Winter Symposium?”

“That’s a really good idea!” Pandora encouraged.

Mayes blinked with realization. “That’s a really good idea… Sasu? Do you wanna… come to our school dance?”

“We did say you should come to Erran at some point,” Icarus encouraged.

Sasu flustered. “R-Really?”

“Yeah!” Mayes replied.

“Well, I… Yeah! That would be great!”

“Yeah, I mean, if you can get the time off, that’d be… that’d be real nice.”

“Yeah, let me just think…”

“It’s in a couple of weeks, isn’t it?” Pandora thought. “After all the exams are done?”

“Oh, I’m sure Troke can cover my work.”

“You’ll just owe her another six months, and another little cake,” Pandora laughed.

“Yeah! Exactly, exactly, it’s… Yeah, I would… I would love to, I’ve never been to… like, a proper symposium.”

“It’s really fun,” Mayes assured her.

Sasu giggled. “We should go sit at the end of the pier.”

“Yeah, let’s go do that.”

“Yeah, we’ll go and see when the next boat is,” Pandora offered.

“We’ll grab you whenever,” Icarus agreed.

“Or just send me one of your messages,” Mayes shrugged.

Pandora grinned. “Yeah, sure.”

Icarus waved. “See you in a bit, Sasu.”

“See you,” she giggled again.

The other three students followed Pandora and Icarus. Alcyone walked next to them. “So, what were you out doing?”

“Um… We were doing quite a bit,” Pandora replied.

“Yeah, we were clearing out some harpies from a tomb,” Icarus explained.

“Oh wow,” Alcyone blinked. “That’s, um…”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think they wanted to talk.”

“No, there was no negotiating with them,” Pandora frowned.

“I hear that harpies are really nasty,” Alcyone nodded.

“They’re awful.”

“Yeah, so,” Icarus shrugged. “But you know, nothing too special.”

“We killed a couple of saber toothed tigers,” Pandora added.

“Yeah, that was cool.”

“Yeah.”

“Wow,” Alcyone gasped.

Icarus held up the necklace with the tooth on it. “Look how big that is!”

“Yeah, they attacked our camp in the middle of the night,” Pandora explained.

Alcyone stared up at the tooth. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that big.”

“It was like, pretty huge.”

“Pandora did such a good job taking it down,” Icarus grinned.

_ “Icarus _ did such a good job taking them down,” she deflected.

“And Mayes was kicking ass.”

As Icarus spoke, he noticed the fire genasi was giving Pandora a bit of a dreamy look. “Yeah, I bet…” she grinned.

“Icarus, tell them about your pet,” Pandora goaded.

Icarus laughed. “Okay, so I met this turtle…”

Pandora was already laughing.

“And first it had _ mad  _ beef with me,” Icarus explained.

Atalia blinked.

“Like, it bit me for no reason. So, I spent like, two hours, and tamed it. And then it became my friend.”

“Yeah, Icarus has his own familiar now,” Pandora teased.

Atalia nodded slowly. “Wow…”

“It was funny at the time,” Icarus shrugged.

“I bet it’s one of those,  _ you had to be there _ type things.”

“I guess it kinda was,” Pandora thought. “Even while you were there, it wasn’t that funny, but like…”

Icarus held out his hands. “Wow, okay! Why tell me to talk about it, then?”

Theron glanced between them, giving them a look before walking ahead. “I’m gonna find a boat.”

Theron continued up the pier, calling to a fisherman and flagging down a boat. The fire genasi had been very amused by the exchange, her head turning back and forth between the two as they bickered.

“Anyway, Atalia, how have your studies been recently?” Icarus asked.

“Oh, you know, I’m… doing really well,” she smiled.

“Yeah? I’ve heard that you do really, really well in some of your classes, so.”

“I’ve heard that you’re probably finishing up this year.”

“Potentially,” Icarus grinned.

“Maybe then someone else will have a chance to be top of the class.”

Icarus blinked. “...Well, I mean, yeah…”

“Everyone’s got a chance to be top of their class,” Pandora defended.

“No, I...,” Atalia backtracked. “That came across rude. You’re really great at what you do.”

“Don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it,” Icarus assured her. “But yeah like, potentially. We still have to pass, we might not pass.”

“True.”

“Yeah, there’s still a lot of hurdles to fall at,” Pandora worried.

“We’ve only done the first task so far,” Icarus explained.

“And the other exam schedule should be up when we get back,” Atalia added.

Pandora jerked to attention. “Oh really?”

“Yeah, for the written stuff.”

“Okay. Yeah, I’ve been waiting for that.”

“Yeah,” Icarus frowned. “Well, just gotta get some more studying done, it’ll be fine.”

“We can study on the boat back,” she offered. “We have a couple classes together, right?”

“Yeah, why not, yeah.”

“I was planning on doing some reading on the way back,” Pandora nodded.

“We can do some stuff then, why not?”

“And if you wouldn’t mind,” she continued, “Maybe… I’ve got a couple classes you did last year? If you wouldn’t mind, like… I don’t know, helping me out a bit?”

“Yeah!” Icarus grinned. “Of course, that’d be no problem.”

“Great!”

“Sure.”

“I really appreciate that.”

“No worries, we can talk through that when we get on the boat.”

“Nice.”

Theron walked back over, waving. “I found a ship!” they called.

“Oh yeah?” Pandora called back over. “When does it go?”

“Ten minutes or so.”

“Okay!”

Pandora sent a message over to Mayes.  _ “Boat in ten minutes. Say your smoochy goodbyes.” _

Thankfully, Mayes managed to keep a good poker face.

“Is everything okay?” Sasu prompted.

“Uh, Pandora just sent me a message. We’ve got to go, in ten minutes.”

“Oh… At least I’ll see you again soon?”

“Yeah, exactly. Um… we can write?”

“Yeah, I’d like that!”

“Yeah? I can send you little messages from school, about how the exams are going, and you can tell me about stuff that’s going on in the town, and what you’re getting up to.”

Sasu shrugged, grinning. “Yeah, same old, same old, boring stuff. Which same client has come into the massage parlour today?”

“I’m sure you have some stories,” Mayes smiled. “I’d love to hear them.”

“Maybe you will,” she giggled.

“I’d like that.”

“Well, I won’t keep you from your friends.”

“Okay, but I’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah,” she beamed.

Mayes kissed her goodbye, giving her tail a little flick before turning to catch up with the others down at the end of the pier. They saw a long fishing vessel, not quite as well crafted as the merchant’s ship they had arrived on. It was heading over to Erran with barrels and barrels of fish that had been recently caught, and it smelled like it.

Theron was unbothered, reaching into a barrel to flick a small fish to their kite. Atalia climbed on, looking anxiously down at the water, and very quickly hurrying to sit at the center of the boat, far away from the edges.

Alcyone hopped on, clambering over the side with her small frame, and joining her in the middle. “I think it’s like, five copper each,” she informed the others.

“No problem,” Icarus agreed.

They all passed over the coins to a bushy bearded fisherman, a man who looked grouchy at first, but turned out to be rather friendly. He asked if anyone was good with boats, and immediately roped the volunteers into helping him with lines and sails. Icarus did everything flawlessly.

As the man started unroping the boat from the pier, moving it onwards, the group spotted Sasu once more. She had come to walk down the pier, waving as they departed. “See you later!”

“Bye!” Icarus called back.

“Bye Sasu!” Pandora followed. “Nice to meet you!”

“See you!” Mayes waved.

“And you, see you soon!” her voice replied, a bit further in the distance now.

The six students settled down onto the deck of the fishing boat. It wasn’t as comfortable as Aio’s merchant ship, but it was cheap passage, and their time at sea passed without conflict.

Icarus sat with Atalia, going over her questions. Partway through the journey, Alcyone sat next to him, shyly asking a few questions about healing magic. Icarus willingly shared his knowledge with her.

“It’s really nice to talk to you properly,” she smiled.

“Yeah, and you!”

“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but you come across quite… hmm… bouncy?”

Icarus laughed, but she wasn’t finished yet.

“And… unapproachable, at school.”

Icarus stopped laughing.

“But, you’re actually really really nice, and… really impressive.”

Icarus gave a smaller smile. “Thank you.”

“He is,” Pandora agreed. “He’s really impressive.”

“All of you are,” the half-elf returned.

Atalia leaned on a hand, appraising Pandora. “Especially you.”

Pandora blushed. “It’s nothing.”

“I just… I love the color of your hair.”

“Yeah? I love the color of yours!”

“Thank you!”

“It’s so cool.”

“Thanks…”

“Must take so much care and attention, to go into that.”

Atalia smiled, still staring at her. Pandora looked away.

Icarus talked to Alcyone a bit more as Mayes advised for their Advanced Racial Anatomy exam. Theron settled near Mayes, revising and comparing notes with them. They mostly respected each other’s space, as Theron wasn’t a small talker, but they didn’t mind leaning over to ask questions or point out important bits in Mayes’ book. The kite circled the ship, landing on the top of the mast for a while.

They sailed on across the crystal sea, all the way back to Erran. The group slept on the ship overnight, laying their bedrolls out on the deck, and they were back in Erran by lunchtime the following day.

Having realized the exam schedule had likely been posted, Pandora was very keen to get back. The six of them caught a cart back across the city, skillfully avoiding Eurylos once more, and paying over a silver each. They parted ways with the other three on the steps of Delphos Academy.

Icarus watched them go. “...Am I really unapproachable?”

“Like… Not in the way that you think, when you hear the word unapproachable,” Pandora explained. “I think like, you give off this aura of being  _ too cool. _ I feel like… I don’t know, I feel so lame when I’m around you, because you're so wow.”

“The way I would put it,” Mayes considered, “Is that you put out so much, there’s like… a wall. Of your muchness.”

“That’s not a bad thing though!” Pandora assured him.

“That’s not a bad thing.”

“It’s really hard to explain.”

“It’s like, you’re always at a ten,” Mayes clarified, “But sometimes people are at, like, five, when they want to talk to you. And it’s hard to meet in the middle there.”

Icarus frowned, nodding to the air. “Yeah…”

“But you’re a good guy.”

Icarus gave a small shrug. “We should go and revise. See if there is a schedule up yet, or…”

They headed to the front desk of the school. There was a hobgoblin woman named Fala waiting there, the secretary of the academy.

As they approached, she looked up at them and nodded. “Ah. I have mail.”

“Oh?”

She dug behind the desk, pulling out a letter for Pandora and a parcel for Mayes.

“Oh, okay,” Pandora took the letter. “This is nice.”

Mayes curiously examined their box.

“And we’re just wondering about if the schedule has gone up yet, for the exams?” Icarus wondered.

“Ah, yes,” she flipped through a few pages. “Which classes are you taking…?”

As they discussed, she informed Pandora that her first exam was coming up on the 2nd of Nevreyn, her Advanced Alchemy Practical. Today was Amakil 27th. She had five days.

Pandora started panicking a bit. “Oh, okay! I need to go and study!”

The secretary explained that the rest of their exams would take place through the 8th and 10th of Neveryn, with one or two a day every day, and one more for Icarus on the 12th. They had quite a crammed section of exams coming up.

Pandora was quickly getting stressed. “The Alchemy final is really big… It’s like, a six hour exam…”

“Is there anything we can do to help you study for it?” Icarus offered.

“Not really, I need to prepare a lot beforehand. I need to make my own glass vials and things like that.”

“Hey, hey, hey. Breathe. In… and out. You’ve got this.”

Pandora tried to follow his advice, breathing slowly. “Okay… It’s just really big, I didn’t realize it was coming up so soon.”

“You’re gonna do amazing, Pandora,” Mayes assured her. “You’ll ace all of your classes.”

“I don’t know…”

“Yeah, I really believe that,” Icarus smiled. “I think that you’re incredibly talented, and… You said earlier that you feel not cool next to me, but I feel not cool next to you. You’re super awesome.”

“I’m so lame!”

“No,” Icarus laughed.

“Somehow, you saying that only makes you cooler,” Mayes teased her.

“Right? You’re not, you’ve got this. You’re so intelligent.”

Pandora blushed. “Both of you shut up! Mayes, what’s in your package?”

Mayes looked over the box for a postal stamp. It was from Vishima. “Oh, mom and dad.”

They detoured over to open it. As they did, the group noticed there were several students starting to put up notices advertising the winter dance, with people signing on to the planning committee and such. There was quite a busy, buzzing atmosphere around the school. The group made their way to some benches on the quad, and took a seat.

Mayes opened up the parcel, and found a small letter on top.

  
  


_ Dearest Meiro, _

_ We hope this letter finds you well. Your father and I wanted to send you your Winter Solstice gift early this year, as it was so late last year. We hope you have been studying hard. Your father says there is no doubt of it, but I hope you find some time to enjoy yourself too. _

_ We miss you. Perhaps we shall try and visit the Mainland next year with your grandfather before he is too old to do it. _

_ Love to you always, _

_ Mom and Dad _

  
  


Inside the box, Mayes found a silk kimono in burnished red, embroidered with delicate gold dragons and lotus flowers, and a pair of black hakama trousers. Under that, there were a few jars of green and jasmine tea, some traditional wagashi sweets, new calligraphy inks, a Daruma doll, and a smaller sealed envelope with eight gold pieces inside.

Mayes unloaded the package with growing excitement. “Oh my gosh! ...They always send me these little care packages every year.”

“That’s so sweet!” Pandora smiled.

“I guess exams were so hot on my mind that I kind of forgot about it.”

“Do they know you’re doing your exams yet?” Icarus wondered.

Mayes blinked. “Shit…”

“Is that a no?”

They sighed. “I’ve forgotten  _ so much… _ of just, normal life? _ ” _

“Don’t worry,” Icarus chuckled.

“I need to write them a letter.”

“Yeah, there’s been a lot going on,” Icarus gave them a comforting pat on the shoulder, and then cautiously retracted the hand, hovering over the space with an unsure expression. “A lot going on…”

Mayes noticed the tentative hand. “He’s inside me now,” they shrugged, patting their chest.

“Sure, okay…” Icarus pat their shoulder more decisively.

Mayes laughed. “You’re not bothering him.”

“Great.”

“Do you want to try some of the sweets?”

“Yes!” the other two chorused.

Mayes handed them over. They were hard sweets, made with rice flour and a sweet bean paste filling, all shaped by hand into beautiful, decorative small shapes, and flavoured with fruit, mochi, mango, or green tea.

“They’re so pretty,” Pandora gasped, examining one. “They’re really pretty, Mayes.”

“They’re so good,” Icarus grinned, mouth full.

“Seems a shame to eat it.”

“No, do it,” Icarus encouraged.

Pandora ate it.

“You go past the bakeries and stuff at home, and they always have windows full of them,” Mayes reminisced. “But they just look like decorations, so I guess, if you didn’t really know that they were sweets, you’d get a bit confused.”

“They’re really good,” Pandora approved.

“Yeah, I always like the flower ones the best,” Mayes replied, taking one for themselves. “You guys are gonna have to try some of the tea as well.”

“Yes please!”

“It’s real good.”

“Definitely,” Icarus grinned. “And, in exchange, I will let you try some of Lorakai’s tea.”

“Yeah,” Mayes nodded. “I bet he makes good tea.”

“He seems like a tea guy,” Pandora agreed.

“Alexander seems like a tea guy too. Do you think they all get tea together?”

Pandora choked a bit on her sweet, growing red. “Uh, I wouldn’t know…”

Mayes laughed. “Okay.”

“Anyway,” Icarus chuckled. “What’s your letter?”

“Oh yeah,” Pandora took it out. “I was so caught up in the exams thing, I forgot.”

She opened the letter. Hers was a bit longer, written in her older sister’s handwriting.

  
  


_ Hello my darling Dora, _

_ Papa told me you got onto your final exam. I’m so proud of you. I know you’re going to do incredibly well. I passed with flying colors, and you’re at least twice as smart as I am. This is me sending you all the good luck you could possibly need. _

_ I don’t want to steal any of your thunder, but you’re not the only one with exciting news this week. I have two things to share. _

_ The first is work. Councilor Adamos has decided to extend my internship into a full time contract, so guess who is now an official, full time advisor to the council of Erran? _

_ The second thing is a little bit more exciting. I wanted to tell you in person, but things have just been too busy for me to get over to Delphos to see you in the last few weeks. Roys has proposed to me, I’m getting married! _

_ We are having an engagement party next month, right after your school year ends. Please tell me you can come, and bring anyone special to you of course. _

_ Love you lots Dora, say hello to Alexander for me. _

_ Persephone _

  
  


Pandora squealed.

“Is everything okay?” the other two worried.

“Yeah, my sister is engaged!”

“Oh my gosh,” Mayes grinned.

“Aw,” Icarus smiled. “That’s so sweet.”

“Oh!” Pandora squealed again. “Oh my Gods, I’ve been  _ waiting _ for him to ask her!”

“How long has it been?” Mayes wondered.

They had met in the Academy, though Pandora hadn’t met him until last winter. They met at the end of their studies, and had been working together at the council since. “It's been like, two years. They met at Delphos, and now they work together. He’s a really nice guy.”

“Cute.”

“Well, that’s really sweet. Congratulations to your sister,” Icarus replied.

“Thank you,” Pandora beamed. “And, she’s having an engagement party.”

“Awesome!”

“So… you guys want to come? It’s after exams and everything…”

“Yeah, sure!” the other two agreed.

“I really want you to meet my family,” Pandora smiled.

“I’d love to meet your family,” Icarus grinned back.

“That’d be amazing,” Mayes nodded. “Can’t wait to meet your dad.”

“Oh my Gods, my dad’s the best,” Pandora laughed.

“He sounds so nice.”

Icarus chuckled. “Well, I suppose we better get on- ”

“Yeah, it’s time to study!” Pandora realized. “It’s time to go.”

“Um, do you mind if we just, really quick…” Mayes gestured over to a nearby building, “Um, put that Vishima contract on hold with Sebaste?”

“Okay, yeah.”

“Because, I kind of…” Mayes placed their hand over their chest again, “Made a promise?”

“Yeah, we can do that,” Icarus grinned.

“Let’s go do that,” Pandora agreed.

“Just real quick,” Mayes assured them.

As they headed towards Sebaste’s office, they were approached by a small freckled half elf with a slender frame, sandy blonde hair, and deep green eyes. They appeared rather androgynous in a House Anterus uniform, holding a pile of papers as they tentatively approached the group. “Sorry, excuse me…?”

“Hi,” three voices overlapped.

“I’m Cenric.”

“Hi Cenric,” the trio replied.

“I’m on the planning committee for the Winter Symposium…”

“Oh, awesome,” Icarus grinned.

“And I’m… Do you know Master Bagoan? The dance teacher?”

“Yeah.”

“Kinda,” Mayes nodded.

“Like, vaguely,” Pandora shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Well,” the half elf continued, “They are doing extra dance classes ahead of the, um, sorry, ahead of the, uh, the dance? Um, I'm trying to get people to sign up…”

“Sure,” Icarus nodded, looking to the others. “Have you guys ever met Master Bagoan?”

“No,” Pandora replied.

“No,” Mayes followed, “But we should definitely have dance classes.”

“They’re very nice,” the student advertised. “And they’re very talented.”

“Yeah, they’re incredibly talented,” Icarus agreed.

“There are classes taking place next week before the main exam period, every afternoon, for anyone who wants them, so…”

“So, you guys have never done that?” Icarus guessed.

“No,” the other two admitted.

“Alright, why not? I’ll come with you. We can do it together.”

“So you’ll sign up?” the half elf beamed.

“Yeah, sure! Why not. I used to do dance with Master Bagoan anyway, so.”

“That would be really really great!” they held out the papers with a list of names.

Icarus signed his name, and Pandora pulled him aside as Mayes signed theirs.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I wasn’t really considering going to the Symposium…”

“What? No, come on, we gotta go. It’s like the end of year thing, especially if we pass our exams, you know? It’s gonna be the last big thing that we do here.”

“I don’t know, it’s not really my thing, like…” she turned further away from Cenric and the papers. “I hadn’t been before, and someone asked me last year, and then… they stood me up, so. I don’t know, it’s not really my thing.”

“We’ll go together, okay?”

“...Okay, if you guys really wanna go that badly…”

“Yeah, we’ll make it a good night. We’ll replace that bad memory with a good one,” he smiled.

“Okay…” Pandora reluctantly signed her name.

“Thank you!” Cenric beamed, looking relieved.

“No worries!” Icarus grinned back. “Good luck getting more names.”

“Thanks for asking us,” Mayes nodded.

“That’s okay! Um, I’ll see you guys around then?” they smiled.

“Sure, if there’s anything else you need just let us know,” Icarus returned.

“Thanks!”

“Good luck finding more people as well,” Pandora followed.

“I’ll see you at dance class,” they replied.

Mayes chuckled. “See you at dance class.”

“See you there,” Icarus nodded.

Cenric quickly hurried off with the papers, looking triumphant.

  
  


The trio made their way to Sebaste’s office, and as they knocked on the door, he called them inside.

“Master Auron,” Mayes greeted.

He looked up from his desk. “Yes?”

“Um, just wanted to double check with you when the contract for the Lords of Vishima was?”

“Yes of course, that is coming up very soon actually…”

“About a week’s time, if I remember correctly,” Icarus nodded.

Sebaste flicked through his papers, looking.

“We’ve got our exam timetables,” Mayes offered. “So we can…”

“See if we can fit it in,” Pandora finished.

“Seems they are arriving on the fourth of Neveryn,” Sebaste reported. “For three days.”

“Okay,” Mayes frowned in thought.

“That’s a gap between our tests, I suppose,” Pandora recalled.

“Yeah, we’re good.”

“And it won’t clash with your second task,” Sebaste nodded, “As that’s coming up sooner.”

Pandora’s eyes flashed. “When is that?”

“I’m glad you came to me actually, that is the 29th. So, not tomorrow, but the day after.”

“Two days?!”

“Your mentors have been asking to see you when you return from what you were doing, so…”

“Okay!” the trio squeaked.

“Cool!” Mayes gulped. “Well, put the contract on hold!”

“Absolutely,” Sebaste pulled out the papers. “If you’d like to sign for it… so you’re definitely doing it?”

“Yeah, of course,” Icarus agreed.

They signed.

“If you like, you can wait here, and I’ll fetch your mentors to talk about your task,” Sebaste offered. “Or you can find them later, it’s up to you.”

“Now that we’re here,” Icarus shrugged.

Pandora rubbed her face, already stressing. “We’re here…”

“Yeah,” Mayes sighed. “In for a silver, in for a gold.”

Icarus shook his head. “Yeah…”

Sebaste turned, using some kind of enchanted messaging stone to summon their mentors. He spoke thrice, informing them that their students were waiting in his office. After about ten minutes, they were joined by their mentors. They sat opposite each other, preparing to discuss the next task.

Citra was eyeing Mayes, clearly wanting to talk about their recent journey. Mayes gave her a bit of a wink to signal that it had worked out, and she nodded back.

Sebaste sat down, flipping through his big book of contracts. “Right… This next task has been assigned to you as the diplomatic experience portion of your final exam. It’s a contract that came into us, and we’ve decided it’s weighted enough that it will be suitable.”

“Okay…” Mayes nodded.

“So, Lord Kreios is a figurehead of agriculture in Erran,” he began.

Pandora had vaguely heard the name before. He owned a lot of olive farms and livestock in the stretches of irrigated farmland outside of the city, but she hadn’t ever met him.

“Lord Kreios is holding a banquet while searching for a suitor for his only daughter, Cassandra. He has requested aid from Delphos in selecting the most appropriate candidate.”

Icarus blinked in surprise. “Okay…?”

“The task here is to attend the banquet in secret, and evaluate the suitors. Then, advise him on the most suitable person for his requirements.”

“Wow, that’s not what I expected,” Pandora remarked.

“No,” Icarus agreed. “Yeah, that sounds fine.”

“I understand it’s a very different task to what you might have been expecting,” Sebaste continued, “But this sort of real world diplomatic experience doesn’t come around that often, and you should be grateful that you have such a chance.”

“Definitely grateful.”

“Sounds fun,” Mayes approved.

Sebaste nodded. “The task will require each of you to play a set role, which will be decided by the Academy, after you’re questioned by each of your mentors. And, your performance in the task will be based on how well you perform the role you’re given.”

“Okay,” Icarus nodded.

“You are not permitted to purchase any additional equipment for this task, but if there’s anything you think you may specifically require to carry out your role, then you may speak to your mentors.”

“How long do we have to complete this?” Pandora worried. “Like, when does he need an answer?”

“It’ll be, essentially, twenty-four hours from the time you reach there. It’s a one evening event. There will be suitors attending from across the continent.”

“Yeah, we can do that,” Icarus grinned.

“Sounds exciting,” Mayes commented.

Pandora shifted in her seat. “Just feels pretty high stakes. This is like… this is a real woman’s marriage we’re deciding on!”

“Yeah,” Icarus nodded.

“Wow…”

“But, that means that we’re gonna put our all into it.”

“Yeah, of course. Obviously. Just like… it’s very different to the labyrinth.”

“But like Master Auron said, it’s gonna be high stakes when we go into the quote-on-quote  _ real world.” _

“Yeah…”

“We’re good judges of character,” Mayes assured her. “So…”

“Yeah,” Icarus grinned.

Master Auron nodded. “I will pass you over to your mentors to ask the questions.”

The three mentors had been sitting through, waiting as the rather jittery man finished his spiel.

Alexander spoke first. “Are you sure you’re feeling up for this? To this task?”

“Oh, we are,” Mayes assured him. “Absolutely.”

“Yeah,” Pandora agreed.

“Good, good,” he nodded. “That’s good. Mainly, we want you to consider what you think your skills will be put to best use doing, during an event like this. And from there, there are a few positions and roles we’ve been discussing for you, but we will make a decision based on where you think you’ll be best placed.”

“Okay,” Icarus nodded.

“So this is to be an evening event- ”

“Basically it’s a baquet,” Lorakai interjected. “Big meal, dozens of fancy rich people, and they’re all gonna be trying to impress the same woman. So… air their dirty laundry.”

Alexander rolled his eyes.

“Mayes, I’m sure you can already think of a few things that you could be put to use doing,” Citra assumed.

“Oh yeah,” Mayes assured her.

“There’s definitely some things you’ve got skills for,” Icarus nodded.

“Yeah,” Pandora agreed.

Citra looked at the pair. “But what about the other two?”

Icarus shrugged. “I’m a people person,” he smiled.

“Yeah you are,” Pandora nodded.

“I’m good at talking to people and getting them to open up.”

“You’re very social.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe a guest of some sort?” Mayes suggested.

“Yeah,” Icarus shrugged.

“And Pandora?” Alexander prompted.

Pandora looked down at her hands, a bit stuck for a minute. “Well I guess this is as good an opportunity as any to… practice being an advisor, out in the field, so to speak.”

“I’d say that’s a good answer,” he smiled. “Alright, with that in mind… it sounds like you’re already leaning towards the roles that we had been discussing. Pandora, I would like you to get close to Cassandra.”

“Okay…”

“She won’t know that you’re there, in this capacity, so perhaps you could pose as an advisor to the city who has been sent to help with this arranged marriage.”

“Okay.”

“I’m sure you can use your charms to befriend her.”

“I’ll do what I can,” she promised.

Lorakai sat back in his chair with a mischievous grin. “Alright, Icarus… You’re gonna love this.”

“Oh no,” Icarus grinned back. “Oh no, I’m not gonna love this…”

“I know you love dressing up fancy… So, I was thinking… We’ll send you in there as one of the suitors.”

Icarus laughed. “I’m sorry…?”

“What?”

“...As a suitor?”

“I think that’s a great idea,” Mayes chuckled.

Lorakai gave them an appreciative nod. “Thank you!”

Pandora giggled quietly to herself as Icarus shook his head.

“Oh, I bet you scrub up real nice,” Mayes teased him.

Icarus sighed, still grinning. “Sure. Okay.”

“You’re gonna need a fake name, you’re gonna need a fake identity,” Lorakai explained. “But… What better way to discuss with the other suitors who they think is the best, what problems they have between them…?”

“Get close to them.”

“Right in their inner circle, exactly.”

“Yeah, sure. Sure,” he laughed again.

Lorakai looked very pleased with himself, with a smug expression that said  _ I’ve done this to annoy you. _

Citra nodded to her student. “Mayes, I won’t beat around the bush. I wanna put you on the staff.”

“I figured,” they agreed.

“We’ve been informed that Lord Kreios’s household staff won’t know of your presence, but his head of house will. So, she can be your contact, get you access to whatever space you need to within the villa… Do you have any questions?”

“Um, will we be keeping up these personas the whole night?” Pandora worried. “Or will we have somewhere where we can sort of tail off into and discuss?”

“As I understand it, Kreios will provide accommodation for you,” Alexander explained. “So I’m sure you’ll be able to find a private space.”

“Alright, no problem,” Icarus nodded.

“Yeah, it’s probably an idea that we keep in communication,” Pandora advised.

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Well I’m sure, if you two are having a conversation, and someone comes to serve you drinks, it’s not going to look out of place,” Mayes assured her.

“It’s not,” Pandora considered, “But I don’t know how much an advisor would be speaking to just one particular suitor. I’ll probably have to speak to all of them.”

“Spread it out.”

“Yeah, we’ll figure out the area,” Icarus grinned. “Are we gonna get a chance to go and actually get used to the layout of the house first?”

“Well yes, we thought you’d send you up there early. It seems the event is taking place from late afternoon onwards,” Alexander continued. “The whole night, and into the next morning. We’ll send you up there early afternoon, you can speak to Kreios, make yourselves familiar.”

“Okay,” Pandora nodded.

“Sounds good,” Mayes agreed.

“You have a day and the rest of today to prepare,” Alexander warned.

Icarus frowned in thought. “Okay…”

“So you can dwell on your questions and bring them to us individually, if you want to. Let us know what you think you need.”

“Yeah.”

“Alexander,” Pandora began, “Can I talk to you as we go? Like, in private?”

“Of course,” he nodded.

“We’ll catch you later,” Icarus smiled to her as the pair left, turning back to Lorakai. “Is there anything I’m gonna need for being a suitor, like…? You said I gotta get dressed up fancy, so…”

“Hm…” Lorakai thought. “Yeah, I think it’s common practice at this sort of thing to give a gift to the family.”

“Gift…”

“So have a think on it.”

“Okay.”

“People do, like… a dozen horses, or like, a new chariot.”

Icarus blinked. “Okay, I don’t know if you’ve realized this, Lorakai… I don’t got that.”

Lorakai chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sure we can sort something out. Just think about what you’d like to give, and then we’ll arrange it.”

Icarus’s eyes flashed.

_ “Don’t _ bankrupt the school,” he warned.

Icarus laughed. “Okay, give me like… a half hour.”

Lorakai rolled his eyes. “Or like,  _ a whole afternoon. _ Take your time, okay?”

“Okay!”

Mayes turned to Citra. “I don’t have any questions, but I figure that we should talk?”

“Yes,” she stood. “We should talk.”

Citra took them to her office as Alexander took Pandora to his.

Lorakai went to the cafe.

  
  


Pandora headed down to Alexander’s bookshelf-lined office with the cozy armchairs. He flicked a hand at the fireplace to get it going, steaming the tea. “What did you want to speak to me about?”

“Um… I feel like, going in looking like myself is probably going to be a bit of a giveaway,” she worried. “Like, I can’t really blend in very easily.”

“Hm, I had thought about this…”

“Yeah, I know there’s spells for that sort of thing, but like, you need to keep recasting and recasting them. And that’s going to provide room for mistakes.”

“I understand. I had thought about this, I thought about maybe you should pose as your sister…”

“I thought about it, maybe.”

“...But, there’s always a chance that there will be someone there who knows her personally.”

“Yeah. Speaking of which, sorry to go on a tangent for a moment, but she’s engaged! She just sent me a letter!”

Alexander smiled, putting a hand on his chest in surprise. “Oh, that’s wonderful!”

“Yeah, she sends her love!”

“Tell her congratulations from me!”

“I will!”

“Is she doing well?”

“Yeah, she’s doing amazing!”

“I’m so pleased to hear that,” he smiled. “Tea?”

“Please.”

He poured her a tea, placing the cup down. “There is something I can give you.”

“Okay?”

“I did think about this, and I thought, I won’t give this to you unless you ask, but seeing as you brought this up… The particular charm that you’re thinking of, that enables you to disguise yourself, you’re right. It does wear off rather quickly, you would spend most of the night trying to keep that up. But, it can be enchanted into an item.”

“Okay, I had heard about that theoretically, but I didn’t know if that was the case.”

“I do have one prepared.”

“You do?”

“We’ve had a few days to think about this,” he nodded.

“Okay.”

“If that is what you want to be doing, then you are more than welcome to it.”

“I think it would probably be a good idea,” she agreed. “Especially as arcane innate resources only go so far.”

“You’re right.”

He went to his desk, opening a drawer as if he was absolutely prepared for this to happen. He pulled out a small black jewelry box, bringing it over and opening it for her. Inside was a necklace of a simple, woven gold chain, with several ornate stones in smaller chains hanging off the neckline, and a small but gem-studded firefly pendant in the center.

Pandora gasped. “I mean, I was expecting a coin to go in a pocket or something…”

He grinned. “Well, this is slightly more significant, but, if you’d like to be posing as an advisor, then you should have something nice to wear.”

“Thanks,” she giggled softly. “It’s beautiful. So what, I just put it on? And it’ll change me into someone else?”

“You’ll need to attune to it, and decide what you want yourself to look like.”

“Mhm?”

“But then, the disguise will stay up as long as the necklace is on.”

“Wow, that’s really good.”

“Here, do you want to try it?”

“Sure,” she giggled again. “Please.”

He swept her hair out of the way, taking out the necklace to drape it around her neck. She grew a bit flustered as he brushed her fingers over her shoulders, looking away. Alexander clasped the necklace, and let go. He was seemingly very good at not reacting to her behavior, having had years of practice.

It hung down past her collarbones, the little firefly pendant in the center sparkling as it caught the firelight. She could feel a throb of arcane energy from it.

“It’s beautiful.”

“You’ll have to spend some time with it, and decide how you want to look.”

“I will, and I need to think about what would be kind of inconspicuous. Thank you.”

“No problem,” he smiled.

Pandora smiled back, but looked away. “I’ll write to my sister and tell her you said hello.”

“And, if you need anything else before the exam, then…”

“Yeah, I will have a think, see if there’s anything else I can come up with.”

“Great.”

“Okay… I’ll leave you to it.”

“Okay.”

Pandora fidgeted a bit more. “Okay, bye.”

She left.

  
  


Icarus walked with Lorakai down to the cafe, and then split off from him to attend to his own business, popping into a shop for a personal errand. He was told it would probably be two or three days. Icarus presented the Delphos permission slip. They looked at it, looked at him, and looked back at the slip.

“Yeah, put it on the Delphos tab,” Icarus assured them.

He signed.

  
  


Mayes told Citra everything that Daichi said, and what had happened afterwards, including the potential power he had mentioned. They weren’t entirely aware of what Daichi meant yet, but he seemed amicable to helping them.

Citra tried to hide it very well, but Mayes could make out the concern in her features. Her face was stone, but she couldn’t hide it in her eyes that she was a bit uncomfortable. But, she accepted what they told her, and appreciated that they hadn’t kept it to themselves. She asked them to be careful, and to keep her updated as they found out more.

“Of course I will,” Mayes agreed.

“Good.”

“I’m sure this’ll…” Mayes trailed off, looking down to pat their chest again. “It’s gonna work out.”

“I hope so.”

“It’s fine, Citra.”

She tilted her head. “You’re very… You can be very blasé about things, Mayes.”

Mayes shrugged.

“And you need to consider, sometimes, that not everything is gonna breeze past you as  _ fine.” _

“But if I keep breezing,” Mayes countered, “It’s more likely.”

“That’s not always true. Okay?”

“...Yeah. I’m just doing my best out here.”

“I know.”

Mayes was silent for a moment, staring at the desk. “Well, thanks for getting that all sorted out.”

“Anything I can do to help you,” she replied.

“Yeah. And hey, if I ever owe you a favor sometime, you call me up on it.”

Citra grinned. “That’s not how it works.”

“No, but you call me up on it!”

She rolled her eyes. “I will. Now, you have a second task to be preparing for.”

“Yeah. I’ve got some stuff I want to do, and then I’ll go focus on that.”

“Good. Now bugger off, I have classes to teach.”

Mayes leaned back in mock offense. “And _ I _ have stuff to do.”

“Well then  _ bye.” _

“Well then  _ bye! _ I’ll see you later.”

“I’ll see  _ you _ later. See you first,” Citra grinned.

Mayes laughed, and headed out. As the day went on, they wrote two letters, picking and pressing some flowers from their little garden to put one in each, one for Sasu, and one for their grandfather. They wrote to their parents, updating them about final exams, their new friends, their  _ girlfriend, _ and assuring them that things were going well. They couldn’t wait to see them again.

Next, they went to town, looking for a fancier armoury to present them with the starry skin from the saber toothed tiger. Mayes found their way to  _ Marie’s Armour Outfitters, _ a small shop on the other side of the Coliseum and away from the main square, a place that dealt in exotic and enchanted items.

Bringing in the pelt, they saw a minotaur behind the counter, with a halfling running around as well. The two of them looked up at the customer.

“Welcome,” the minotaur greeted.

“Hi…”

“Welcome!” the halfling squeaked.

“Hi,” Mayes nodded.

“What can we do for you?”

“Um, so I came across a really strange creature the other day. It had this…” they rummaged around to pull out the pelt. “And I took some of its teeth as well. So I got these parts from it and I was just wondering if they could be fashioned into some sort of… either, armour, or bracers, or leg braces? It seems…”

“Let me take a closer look,” the halfling took it over the counter, getting out a few different magnifying glasses to take a closer look. After a minute or so, they leaned back in surprise. “You know, I’ve never seen one of these in person.”

“Really? My friend said it seemed kind of magical, but...”

“Yeah. I don’t know what it does yet, but I’m sure it can be worked into something.”

“Okay,” Mayes nodded.

“What are you most after? What are you… interested in? What’s your skill set?”

“Uh, I’m studying at Delphos, as you might be able to tell,” they gestured to their uniform. “Um, I’m interested in infiltration, and striking without being seen.”

“Interesting, interesting. Okay. I’m not sure whether we could work it into an armour, but perhaps another clothing item that would help you with those particular skills.”

“Yeah? I’d appreciate that.”

“What’s your budget?”

“Uh, the school pays for it, and I pay them back, so…”

The halfling’s eyes flashed. “So no budget?”

“...Dangerous words, but, maybe.”

“Just so I know what we’re limiting ourselves to, with enchantments.”

“...I don’t want to bankrupt the school.”

“Well yes, I understand that. Is there an upper limit?”

“Um, how much do you think it’s…?”

“Enchanted items can go from 400 gold, to 1,500 gold, to 10,000 gold...”

Mayes thought. “Let’s say… no more than 2,000.”

“Good to know,” they noted that down. “Okay!”

“Okay…”

“We can, if you leave it with us, work it into something. Let you know when we’ve come up with a plan, and then let you know when we’ve done it.”

“Okay. I’ll be back for some sort of consultation, then?”

They nodded, taking their name and informing them they would contact Mayes at the school when it was time.

“Appreciate it,” Mayes nodded.

As they headed back out of the shop, they crossed over into the plaza. As they worried over the price, they bumped straight into Icarus. “Hey!”

“Hey!”

“Hey!”

“Hey!”

“You good?” Mayes grinned.

“Yeah, what are you doing out here?” Icarus asked.

“Errands.”

“Fair.”

“Just thought I’d drop off that fancy skin.”

“Oh, right!”

“See if they can make anything with it. What are you doing out here?”

“I came out for tea with Lorakai,” Icarus lied. “Just heading back now.”

“Oh, I missed the tea,” Mayes lamented. “Shame.”

“He’s still there if you want to go catch him.”

“No, that’s alright.”

“Alright, let’s head back.”

“Come on.”

  
  


Throughout the evening, they studied for the upcoming exams and prepared for the next task. Eventually, Icarus knocked on Lorakai’s apartment door with his plans for what gift to bring as a suitor.

“It’s open!” Lorakai called.

“It always is,” Icarus replied as he entered. “You should probably lock that at some point.”

Lorakai shrugged.

“I gotta take something as a suitor, right? I thought I’d tell you now, so that…?”

“Sure. What are you thinking?” 

“Okay, so…”

“Wait,” Lorakai pulled out his grading book, flicking through to an empty page with a grin.

“Mhm. Okay, I’m just gonna pretend you didn’t do that,” Icarus chuckled. “Okay, so…”

Lorakai readied his pen.

“Put the pen down,” Icarus chided. “So he is big in agriculture, he’s got like, a monopoly, here in Erran, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And trades, in and out?”

“Yeah.”

“...I know that there is a spell that can be used to help with that.”

“Okay…”

“And, it is a small gesture, but, I think I would like to take, as a potential suitor, a box with a seed in it that has that spell attached to make the area around it able to grow for a whole year.”

Lorakai nodded, writing it down. “I see what you’re getting at.”

“And, also an Everlasting Flower.”

“...Okay?”

“Well, I’m not just getting  _ him _ a gift, if I have to go there,” Icarus reasoned.

“...That’s very sweet of you. Not sure that’s how it usually works, but, sure. Speak to… Speak to Alexander about the seed.”

“Okay.”

“Um, and the flower, I guess. You know that’s not really my thing.”

“Sure. I just thought I had to tell you first…”

“No no, it’s good, I like it. Um, I think it’s a good idea.”

“Okay, great! Thanks.”

As Icarus talked with him, leaning on the kitchen counter, he stealthily dropped the ten gold coins of allowance back into one of the drawers. Lorakai chatted with him for a bit and then let him go, oblivious to the gold in his drawer.

  
  


Mayes enlisted a few other Callidus students to help them prepare for the second task. They asked them to have a conversation so Mayes could practice sneaking up to eavesdrop, unnoticed.

Theron agreed, as did Ep. Ep was another Callidus student, a slim built high elf with shoulder length wavy white hair and honey yellow eyes. They had dark undereye bags, circle framed glasses, and a little scar under their right eye. Ep was quite shy upon the first impression, but Mayes knew he was a bit judgemental. The pair of them stood around having a conversation, waiting for Mayes to leave their vision before they snuck in again.

Figuring they wouldn’t be able to wear them as staff, Mayes took off the elven boots, relying on their own skill. On their first try, they got quite close to the pair, but after a short while lingering nearby and trying to appear inconspicuous, Ep looked over. “I can see you.”

“...I’ll try again, then.”

“Mhm.”

They went again. Moving in undetected, Mayes picked up a short bit of their conversation. Ep was talking about who he was thinking of taking to the winter dance, while Theron seemed distressed at the required level of small talk. After a few minutes, the pair looked around to see if Mayes had abandoned them. Mayes stepped out of the shadows with a grin.

“That was good,” Ep nodded.

“Thank you, thank you. Thanks for helping out.”

“No problem,” Theron assured them.

They went a few more times, getting it down before Mayes went back to revising.

  
  


Pandora was revising as well. After awhile, she sat down with the necklace, taking an hour with it. She still had butterflies at the recent memory of Alexander clasping it around her neck. A bit fluttery, she felt the necklace latch on in the way magical items tended to when attunement had been achieved.

She stood in front of a mirror, thinking of an inconspicuous disguise. She tried a few different styles, changing her hair and trying to look different. Eventually, she settled on a medium height honey blonde half elf. With the image in her mind, she looked into the mirror, and there she was.

Unfortunately, the necklace wouldn’t change her voice. She spent a bit of time trying out different accents, and slowly started to get a handle on it over the rest of the entire afternoon. She revised as she practiced, reading things out of her books in different voices. She wasn’t skilled at it, but paired with a different face, it might pass.

Getting up early the next morning, she headed to the arts department, using the kilns, forges, and furnaces to make the vials for her alchemy exam. Infusing magic into the glass as she blew the vials, they came out perfectly. There were a few other students in the area with the kiln doing various crafts, as an art class was required at Delphos, and a few stopped what they were doing just to watch as she blew the glasses into incredible crystal vials of different colors, brimming with arcane energy. She hadn’t done this in awhile, but it all came back to her right away.

She felt good to be taking a break from her work, making them. Pandora was so completely focused that she didn’t realize she had an audience as she worked, and she was still trying different voices as she shaved the glass. After a few hours, she had five of them.

  
  


Icarus went to Alexander in the morning to ask about the magical items. He knocked on the door to his office, and when Alexander called him in, he looked surprised to see that it wasn’t one of his students.

“Hello,” Icarus grinned.

“Hello! What can I do for you?”

“Um, Lorakai told me to speak to you about getting some items for this task that’s coming up?”

“Okay?”

“So there’s… I know there’s a spell that some people can do that makes land really good at sprouting crops?”

“I know the one.”

“I wanted to know if you could infuse a seed with it? And, potentially make an Everlasting Flower too? Something that just wouldn’t get touched by death?”

Alexander thought. “I… am up for the challenge. Please, take a seat.”

“Sure,” Icarus sat, pulling out the seed and flower he had collected.

Alexander flicked through the books on his desk for awhile, going over the problem as Icarus took the time to quietly revise more.

“Whilst I’ve got you here…” Alexander began.

“Yeah?”

“I wanted a word about... Pandora.”

“Okay?”

“I wanted to ask… I haven’t seen her…” Alexander frowned, trying to find the words. “She’s not usually very social. And I just wanted to make sure that she’s doing okay. This is really the first time that I’ve seen her spending any significant time with anybody.”

“Really?”

“...Yes.”

“Can’t see why, she’s great!”

Alexander nodded. “She just… I’m sure you’ve already gathered, works too hard…”

“Yeah.”

“And doesn’t usually get on with other people that easily. I worry that she’s socialized more with me in the last couple of years than anyone her age. And there’s nothing wrong with that, she’s a… I’m good friends with her, but there’s also… dozens and dozens of other students here. And you two really seem to have… changed something in her.”

“Pandora’s really great,” Icarus replied. “And, I don’t know, I feel like maybe she doesn’t see it as much as everyone else?”

“I can see that.”

“And maybe that makes her nervous with other people? I’m not too sure, but it’s been nice, spending a lot of time with her. She’s a really, really good friend. And I’m glad to have her on our team for this.”

“That’s good to hear,” Alexander smiled. “Her older sister was far more confident. And, not that there’s anything wrong with not being so extroverted, but it has been harder for me to understand what she needs, in order to push herself further.”

“Mhm.”

Alexander leaned back. “...I’m sorry, this shouldn’t be on you, this is…”

“No, no no, not at all. I think… chances to prove to  _ herself, _ that she can do this…?”

“Yes, that’s always the way…”

“Because I completely believe that she can do anything she puts her mind to, she’s one of the, she’s so… intelligent?”

“She’s exceptionally talented.”

“Yeah.”

“She has no idea that she far out excels what her older sister ever achieved.”

Icarus smiled. “Well she’s a shining star, alright. But, I think that she needs to see that for herself.”

“Mhm.”

“But, I can say I’m happy to be her friend.”

“I’m glad. Just, keep an eye on her for me.”

“Sure,” Icarus agreed.

“I want to see her thrive, and…” he sighed. “I’m aware that the three of you are probably going to be finishing here in a couple of weeks, forever. I will continue to be her friend, but I can’t be her mentor for any longer than that.”

“Don’t worry. I think she’s gonna do great.”

“Good,” he smiled. Alexander went back to working on the seed and the flower. After awhile, he waved Icarus away. “Just leave this with me, it’s gonna take hours.”

“Sure,” Icarus chuckled. “Do you want me to get you a tea?”

“Oh, I’m good,” he waved his hand at the teapot, and it started steaming immediately.

“That’s so cool…” Icarus grinned, standing. “Okay,” he gave another nod, and left to do his studying.

Later on, Alexander had the seed and flower delivered to Icarus’s dorm room, with a note that read,  _ “The seed will start to work  _ _ as soon as it is planted. _ _ Please convey that message.” _

  
  


The day went on, the three of them deep in their separate studying and preparation. Another night of sleep passed, and they were as prepared as they could be. Pandora and Icarus found appropriate clothing for the next task, while Mayes would be provided with a uniform upon arrival.

They sent them off in a carriage. The carriage took them out of Erran’s city walls and through the irrigated fields, straight across to the east. They saw long stretches of irrigated farmland, open fields, and twisting olive trees in perfect rows. Before long, they could see the large villa from a distance.

As they approached, they could make out the sloping terracotta roof, a white colonnade stretching all the way around the front of the house, with a horseshoe shaped building with a raised courtyard in the center of it. There was luscious greenery and marble walkways with fountains and statues, all surrounded by trees and fresh green grass. None of it was commonplace in the Erran area, but it was a very well kept villa.

The carriage dropped them off at the front steps, with hedges all the way around the outside of the large front gate. Waiting there, they were met by an older woman who appeared human with a bit of halfling ancestry, making her unusually tall. She had dark curls teased into a huge mane about her head, and a wide smile on her overly made-up face. She introduced herself as Greta, head of the household staff, and informed them that Lord Kreios was waiting for them.

“It’s really good to meet you,” Greta smiled.

“Nice to meet you too,” Mayes nodded. “Pleasure working with you.”

“Please, do come on inside.”

“Yeah, sure,” Icarus grinned. “This place looks incredible.”

“It’s beautiful,” Pandora agreed.

Greta led them inside and up the front steps. They saw a sprawling courtyard in front of them, with slabs of flagstone around rows of hedges, stretches of fountains, and statues down the middle. Ahead of them were huge wooden doors, with plenty of windows to the inside of the building, the structure curving around the entire courtyard.

Greta took them directly in through a door to the right. Immediately, they were struck by how light and airy the inside of the villa was. Sunlight bounced off polished mosaic on the floors, and the walls were adorned with huge portraits in gilded frames. They saw images of farmland, Erran in its antiquity, and the Imperial Palace before it was taken down to become the Imperial Plaza. As they walked through the hallway, they saw a scaled down statue in one alcove of the Colossus of Erran, a mighty statue that stood at Erran’s gates about 400 years ago. It had been built to be called to Erran’s aid in times of war. Nothing remained of it now, except for the head, which could be seen in one of Erran’s museums.

Greta led them a few doors down into a reception room, with more decorations on the walls, but little furniture beyond a table decorated with intricate patterns in gold and angle legged kline couches, one of which was occupied.

Greta bowed in greeting to him. “My Lord, your guests,” she gestured to the trio.

Icarus bowed in his own greeting.

Ahead of them was Lord Kreios. He was a stout human man, looking to be in his late fifties. He had white hair and a thick beard, his tanned skin lined with age. He stood to greet them, reaching only about 5’5”. “You must be the students that they sent. Very well. Please seat yourselves, we have much to discuss.”

“Thank you sir,” Pandora nodded as they sat.

Lord Kreios sat as the trio introduced themselves. “It’s good to meet you all.”

Greta was still standing respectfully to the side, silent, but not leaving.

“First, if you could tell me what you already have been told?” he prompted.

“That we’re here to see some suitors of your daughter,” Mayes replied, “And help you decide who’s the appropriate match.”

“Perfect,” he nodded. “Cassandra is my pride and joy. My only child. Her mother is no longer around, so it falls onto me to have to find her the most appropriate husband.”

“What would you deem the most appropriate husband for her?” Icarus asked.

“Yeah, anything in particular that you’re looking for?” Pandora followed.

“That’s a good question,” Lord Kreios thought. “There are quite a few… criteria, I suppose. I’m willing to keep an open mind, but seeing as this is an arranged marriage, it would best suit our family if it was financially beneficial, or politically beneficial.”

Arranged marriages were quite common, particularly in the upper classes. They were usually arranged to produce heirs, or to follow through on some kind of trade exchange. It was common to marry for political reasons, with some pairings taking mistresses later.

“It’s also…” Lord Krios continued, “It’s important to me that Cassandra is able to produce an heir. As the only child in my family, and my brother has no sons either… we want to make sure that the Krios household and our empire can continue.”

“Is she the eldest of yours and your brother’s children, then?” Pandora guessed.

“No, but as head of the household, our line would come first before his,” he explained. “My agriculture business is largely contained to the west, and if a suitor offered me some sort of opportunity to expand it elsewhere on the continent, that would be beneficial.”

“We understand that there are suitors coming from all over Caldera.”

“Yes, we have some coming from the far north, Marlborough, Elenithil…”

“That far away? My gosh…”

“This is a household that worships Pelor.”

“So Pelor is a bonus?” Mayes guessed.

“A bonus,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t say a strict requirement, but… Pelor, Avandra… these are the deities of our trade.”

“Of course,” Pandora nodded. “Would there be any deities that, if a suitor were to worship them, that would sort of be a point against them for you? Or is not something that you’re too bothered about?”

He thought for a moment. “How familiar are you, with the Pantheon, between you?”

“Pretty familiar,” Icarus grinned.

“Any particular deity that’s like… Tiamat, for example.”

Icarus chuckled a bit. “Yeah.”

“Not widespread worship of a God of greed, but that would be a definite strike on the negative side.”

“Of course,” Pandora agreed.

“I don’t… I can speak honestly with the three of you while you do this,” he shifted closer, “I’m not looking for a suitor who wants to use this marriage to be more beneficial to  _ them _ than it is to  _ our _ household.”

“Okay…”

“I don’t want someone who is looking to absorb our business, and make it their own for generations to come.”

“You’re looking for a partnership,” Mayes nodded.

“A partnership, or… someone who’s willing to hand the reins over to us.”

“Okay…” Pandora considered.

“And of course, I want Cassandra to be happy,” he added.

They studied him, but Lord Kreios seemed genuine. He was practically oozing charisma, and they found themselves quite taken by his words as they spoke.

“Yeah, I mean, this all sounds great,” Icarus agreed. “There’s definitely things that we can look into and discover, and get back to you.”

“Myself and Greta here are the only two who will know of your purpose in the household,” he warned.

“Of course. Have you been told as well, what roles we will be taking while we’re here?”

“I have. Cassandra is now expecting an advisor from the city to aid her in her search.”

“Of course,” Pandora nodded.

Lord Kreios turned to Mayes. “The rest of the staff have not been informed who you are, but they are aware that somebody else is coming to join them.”

Mayes’ eyes flicked to Greta. “Okay.”

“As for yourself,” Lord Kreios turned to Icarus, “Perhaps we can have a conversation later, on… who you’re planning to say that you are.”

“Of course,” Icarus agreed.

“Basically, we haven’t wanted to inform anyone else because rumours of your presence will spread amongst the suitors, and it’s of the utmost important to me that you evaluate them without the suitors performing for you. Who knows what they’d say if they knew you were judging them.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I want the truth.”

“We can do that,” Icarus smiled.

“Good. I don’t know the identity of everybody who is coming, we’ve put the word out to many families and not everybody has RSVP'd. But, there are a few that I can tell you about up front.”

“That would be helpful,” Pandora encouraged.

“And you can let us know if you have any favorites with these ones,” Icarus nodded.

Lord Kreios thought for a moment. “I’m aware of Lord Stelios Paneas. He’s from here in Erran. We know each other well enough, he’s a stud farmer, got a noble title deed… I don’t find him particularly impressive, he’s far too attached to his horses. But he’s coming regardless. He’s not a terrible match, but…”

“Not the most favorable,” Pandora finished.

“Not for Cassandra.”

“Fair,” Mayes nodded.

“There is, from Elenithil,” Lord Krios continued, “I know nothing of this man, but, a Viscount. Gaius Carnifex. I know that he is supposedly related to royalty, but apart from that, I couldn’t id entify him in a crowd. From Shadebourne, a knight, comes from old money apparently. Sir Dion, I believe he is called. We received a letter saying he was coming but beyond that, I’ve never heard of him.”

“Okay…”

“There’s Voltus, Voltus Amaria. He’s a landowner here who owns vineyards outside the city. His father was renowned for his prowess impressing the upper classes. I think he’s a good man, but… perhaps his industry might be a bit too local to benefit my business. It’s not getting a foothold elsewhere, if we’re only stretching a mile down the road. And, the last one I know is coming, Onias. He’s the son of a merchant fleet owner, and a childhood friend of Cassandra’s. He’s grown up to be quite a remarkable man, but, I’m again, not entirely convinced that marrying into Onias’s family would bring much benefit to us, seeing as we already have such a close network. I know his father well, he’s a good man. He’d be a good match, and I think she’d be happy, but… I’m confident there’s probably someone who can benefit the family better.”

“Is he the only one that Cassandra has met?” Pandora wondered. “Or has she met any of the others that you know are coming?”

“As far as I know… She will have met Stelios, maybe when she was younger, but she doesn’t involve herself much in the business. Focuses more on her schooling. But, she doesn't know the others.”

“Okay.”

“This is all good information for us to keep in mind, thank you,” Icarus smiled.

“Does she have any particular ambitions?” Pandora continued. “Like, you said she doesn’t involve herself in the business that much, but, is she going to at some point, or...? Would that be the role of whoever she marries?”

“The role of her husband,” Lord Kreios confirmed. “She has expressed… disinterest, in taking over the business.”

“Okay.”

“But you can speak to her more about that yourself.”

“I will.”

“And I will say, last thing,” he looked at the three of them quite sharply, “My daughter is a very, very beautiful woman. Don’t get any ideas.”

“Of course not, that’s not what we’re here for.”

“No,” Mayes agreed.

“Not at all,” Icarus followed.

“Good,” Lord Kreios smiled. “Greta can show you to where you will be accommodated overnight.”

“Much appreciated.”

“And you sir,” he nodded to Icarus, “You can come and find me whenever you need to. We can discuss your role here.” He turned to Mayes. “Greta can take care of you.”

“Yep,” they replied.

“And…” he looked to Pandora, “Greta will show you to Cassandra’s chambers, where she is with her cousin.”

“I’d like to get a lay of the house if possible, as well,” Mayes added.

“Yeah, that would be helpful if we could have a little tour,” Pandora agreed.

“Absolutely,” he confirmed.

“Thank you,” Mayes nodded back.

Icarus looked between his allies. “I think perhaps maybe I shouldn’t join you on this tour. I don’t want any other staff members to spot me walking around already.”

“That’s a good idea,” Pandora considered.

“Sure,” Mayes shrugged.

Lord Kreios gestured for Greta to lead them out. She took them up a set of stairs to the upper floor, where the corridor was lined with half a dozen doors. Where some were open, they saw various uniformed staff members making up beds for more guests. Eventually, they reached their assigned room.

Greta led them inside, telling them as they walked that it would be labelled as the room of Icarus’s suitor alias, but it had been made up for the three of them. She warned them not to let anyone else see inside the room.

Their room was as fine as any of the others they had passed, the walls painted with a fresco of a landscape similar to the one outside, and three simple but comfortable beds laid out with crisp linen sheets and fresh plump pillows. They looked much finer than any of the beds at the Academy.

Greta told them to take their time changing, and that they would be expecting the rest of the suitors around 4:00pm. She told Mayes to come find her when they were ready, and explained the layout of the house, after pointing around at the different rooms as she had brought them up.

Eventually, Greta left them in the room.

Pandora took a deep breath. “Okay…”

“How are you feeling?” Icarus grinned.

“I’m… holding it in. Trying not to let it out.”

Mayes laughed. “You’re gonna do great, Pandora.”

“Yeah, you got this,” Icarus assured her.

“Should we talk strategy?” she proposed.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, smart,” Mayes nodded.

“So,” Icarus began, “You should probably go and meet with Cassandra soon, get to know her…”

“Yeah,” Pandora agreed. “I’ll sort of make a mental list of what  _ she’s _ looking for?”

“Yeah, and try to pass that on to us at some point? A message, I guess, through…?”

“Yeah.”

Icarus turned to Mayes. “And what about you?”

“I figure I’m best just… listening,” they replied.

Icarus grinned. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds good.”

“And if I do get caught by anyone in a place I shouldn’t be, I can be very… believable.”

“More persuasive than you wanna be,” Icarus chuckled.

“Sometimes.”

Pandora went through her things, taking out a piece of parchment and bringing it over to a desk. “I figure we might not always be able to come back here altogether? So maybe if there’s anything we need to let the others know, even just little observations that we make throughout the night, just whenever we can, we can come write them down?”

“Yeah.”

“That sounds good, that’s a good plan,” Icarus considered. “We should probably hide it though, just in case someone comes in.”

“Yeah, we should keep it…” Pandora looked around. “I don’t know, under one of the mattresses or something?”

“Yeah. Speaking of, I’m really excited to be on one of these mattresses,” he grinned.

“They look really comfortable,” Mayes agreed, staring wistfully over to the mountain of pillows.

Pandora laughed. “Let’s just take a minute to have fun.” She sat on the bed. It was very soft and bouncy. They were proper feather stuffed mattresses, while they were more used to straw back at the school. It was the softest bed they had ever laid on. “This is plush.”

  
“I don’t wanna get up,” Icarus sighed, splayed out on his own bed.

“You’re gonna have to.”

“I know…”

“You need to get your head in the game.”

He sighed again. “Yeah, I should probably go speak to our Lord here, and get my persona on.”

“Yeah, and you should take that house tour,” Mayes advised Pandora.

“Yeah, let’s do that quick,” she agreed.

“You gonna get your disguise on?” Icarus prompted.

Pandora frowned. “Um… Just in case anyone sees me, I don't want to be seen having a tour with Mayes.”

“Well I mean, it makes sense, if you’re new to the house. Because otherwise it’s gonna be, like,  _ hey, where’s that tiefling coming from?” _

“I guess…”

“It’s up to you, obviously.”

“Oh, I don’t know what to do…”

As Pandora worried, Mayes went to a corner to get changed into the staff uniform Greta had provided for them. They made their hair up a bit nicer, as opposed to their usual many flyaway strands. As they tried, a few hairs refused to be tamed, but it generally worked.

Pandora stepped outside to where Greta was waiting. “You say Cassandra is with her cousins? Is she going to be in her room for a while, do you reckon?”

“Yeah, I think so,” she nodded.

“So I'd be safe to have a look around the house?”

“Yeah.”

Pandora nodded. “Let’s do this quickly and covertly.”

“Cath you guys later,” Icarus grinned.

“See you,” Mayes nodded, following Pandora out.

Greta led the pair of them into the corridor. From where they were, she pointed down the hall to a large set of double doors directly ahead of them. “That’s Cassandra’s room, and Lord Kreios’s room, down that corridor.”

There were a couple more doors where they were, which she informed them were more guestrooms. Leading them through an archway, she pointed out a balcony to the courtyard, and another to the rear garden. There were baths, a washhouse, and plenty more guestrooms. Most of the floor was made of guestrooms, or rooms that had been repurposed into guestrooms for the sake of a large event.

Downstairs, they were shown through to the staff corridor. Mayes learned that there were several corridors through the house that went between the walls, leading to the staff quarters as well as the back of some rooms, including the kitchen, library, dining hall, and around the back of the grand hall where the suitors would present themselves tonight. There was a retiring room where men traditionally went after dinner to discuss, and the reception room they were in earlier attached to a massive art gallery. There was also a shrine to Pelor within the house. Outside was a pool, outdoor baths, and a final guestroom. They were shown around all of these spaces, and then Greta let them go.

Pandora returned to the room, putting on the necklace. Icarus was just about to head out, and as he made for the door, he saw Pandora’s form shift into someone else.

“Looking good,” he smiled.

Pandora took a moment to settle into the new accent. “Thanks.” She sighed, falling back into her usual voice. “I’ve just got to keep remembering to keep speaking like that.”

“Yeah. I believe in you,” Icarus grinned. “I’ll catch you later though.”

“Good luck!”

“You too.”

He headed out and down the stairs to Lord Kreios. The Lord was waiting in the grand hall, a large room with plenty of seating laid out for the different people coming, and long tables being laid out with snacks ahead of the main banquet meal. There was a large, throne-like seat for the Lord at the head of the grand hall, with another beside it for Cassandra, and a third for what Icarus guessed might be the cousin. The staff began setting up a fourth chair to the side of one, which he supposed would be for Pandora.

“Your home is very impressive,” he smiled.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“Our family has worked hard for this.”

“I can imagine so.”

Lord Kreios gave an approving nod. “So, let’s discuss…”

“Of course.”

The Lord ushered the staff out, waving them away. “We need some privacy.”

The servants disappeared quickly through a hidden door in a wall panel, escaping into the staff corridors.

“So,” Lord Kreios cleared his throat. “As I understand it, you’re here to pose as one of my daughter’s suitors.”

“I am.”

“What am I to call you?”

Icarus replied immediately. “Antony Nowak.”

“Antony Nowak,” he nodded. “And who are you?”

“I’m from Eras Minorix.”

“Another town…”

“My father, obviously, runs a very small business out of there. Usually dealing with fish, but is willing to branch out into agriculture.”

“Okay… Well, I would say that’s enough. So tell me about yourself.  _ Antony.” _

“Well, I’ve been pretty hard working all my life. Always wanted to take over the business. Obviously, I’ve been working a bit in my father’s shadow…”

“Do you have nobility in your blood?”

“Not as far as I’m aware.”

Lord Krios examined him a moment. “And what makes you think that you have the right to be here amongst these people?”

“We are a hardworking family, as you yourself are, and though our house isn’t as big as yours, we are hoping to get there as soon as we can.”

“Hm. Do you have riches?”

“We do, we’ve got some trade agreements with Briny Run.”

“Good,” he sat back, approving. “Well, I think you’ll do fine.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s probably best that you don’t get seen too much inside the house before the others arrive.”

“Of course.”

“Please, feel free to enjoy the gardens.”

“I’d love to.”

Icarus excused himself.

  
  


Meanwhile, Mayes was shown around the staff quarters, introduced to a variety of random staff members, and told about the schedule for the evening. At 4:00pm, the suitors would arrive and present themselves to Lord Kreios. They would give their argument for why they were a good suitor, and offer their gift. The staff would then be required to take those gifts to a safe place. About an hour to an hour and a half later, Cassandra would be meeting with each of the suitors in the courtyard while the staff prepared the banquet.

Knowing why Mayes was there, Greta wasn’t expecting them to be in the kitchen preparing the food, but Mayes would be welcome to come into the kitchen and take things in and out for credibility. Though, if they did so, she warned them to tell someone what they were taking so the staff would know where the missing food had gone.

Greta walked them to the courtyard, showing them where Cassandra was to meet with the suitors later. She would see each of them for ten minutes only.

Glancing around the courtyard, Mayes found at least ten hedges, with various statues and large fountains. There were definitely places they could hide.

Interestingly, there were a few windows to the courtyard that appeared to be showing into the main building, but were actually leading to a staff corridor with decorated walls, creating the illusion of a beautiful view inside the villa.

Greta explained that the banquet would be held at 8:00pm. A dinner of seven courses would be served in the banqueting hall. There were five tables, and staff would be required to remain in that room to serve guests. After that, the events would move back into the grand hall, where there would be music and dancing for the evening. Later, people would retire to their rooms.

She urged them to make the most of the times in between when the staff had to be present, telling them to come find her if they had any trouble. She would do her best to alleviate any problems they had with other staff members.

  
  


Back in the room, Pandora got dressed for the evening, putting all of her new hair up into a new style. It was a bit difficult, as she had to take the necklace off to do so, but taking it off reverted her hair to a different length and size again. Eventually, she made it work.

Before going over to Cassandra’s room, she took a minute to think about her sister. “What would Sephie do, what would Sephie do…”

She was very nervous, trying to exude her sister’s more extroverted energy. She pulled herself together, taking her time, as there were still a few hours before the suitors would arrive.

Eventually, she went through the large main doors to where Cassandra’s room would lie beyond. Her door was slightly ajar, and inside, Pandora could see a vast, sprawling bedroom, with a fine king-sized bed, a fireplace going, more portraits on the walls, and everything draped in fine linen fabrics and bright colors.

There were two women in there, Cassandra and her cousin Hera. Both of them were very very beautiful, and physically very similar, although Cassandra had elven features and pointed ears. Her cousin was several years older, but both had olive skin and gingery blonde hair. Cassandra had hers up in a neat updo, while Hera let hers fall loose, reaching all the way down to her waist. Hearing her coming, they looked up and smiled.

Pandora took a breath, and smiled back, speaking in her new voice. “Now which one of you is Cassandra?”

“That would be me,” Cassandra answered.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she came over, holding out a hand. “I’m Areina.”

“Areina, nice to meet you. Please, take a seat. We were told you’d be coming.”

“I’m so excited to get to know you, and to enjoy this party tonight!” Pandora beamed. “It sounds so exciting. Are you excited?”

“Yes,” she grinned back. “It should be pleasant. This is my cousin, Hera.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Hera,” Pandora smiled.

Cassandra sat back with a sigh. “So… I suppose you’re here to help me choose.”

“Well, the thing is, I want to know what  _ you _ want out of this. I know we’ve spoken to your father, and we know everything that he wants out of this, but I’m here to look after  _ you _ tonight.”

“Oh,” Cassandra straightened. “Well…”

“I want to get to know you, and get to know what you’re after!”

“...That does make a change,” Cassandra chuckled.

“This is meant to be such an exciting time!”

“Well…” Cassandra put her chin in her hand, staring off. “What do I want… in a  _ man.” _

“Just go all out,” Pandora encouraged. “Anything you want.”

Pandora pulled out some parchment and a quill. Hera sat on the end of the bed, crossing her legs to sit back in amusement as she watched. There was already a ring on her finger.

“I want…” Cassandra began. “Let’s be honest, he has to be physically attractive?”

“Absolutely,” Pandora nodded, taking notes.

“Hm… I want a man who’s going to take care of me in every capacity. Spoil me rotten,” she giggled.

“Very, very important,” Pandora agreed.

“And I don’t want to be a housewife,” she continued.

“Okay?”

“I’d rather be… hmm… what’s the word for it…”

Hera grinned over. “A trophy wife.”

“Yeah, that’s it, that’s the one!”

“Oh… Okay, I see,” Pandora slowly nodded, writing that down as well.

“You know, I want to be paraded around on his arm at fancy parties…”

“Doted on…”

“Yeah! I don’t care what riches or treasures he has, I better be the treasure of his life.”

Pandora nodded again. “Nothing is more important than you.”

Cassandra played with her hair in thought. “...I want him to be romantic…”

“Romantic…”

“And creative…”

“Anything physical that you look for? Tall, small? Muscular?”

“Well, now that you’re saying it, tall and muscular…”

She noted it down. “Tall and muscular…”

“Strong jawline…”

“This is all, ideal world kind of thing,” Pandora warned her. “I’m gonna get you the closest I can get to this, but if I know what you want, that makes my job so much easier.”

“Yeah yeah, obviously,” Cassandra waved her off, continuing. “And a little rough…”

“A little rough?”

“Yeah, like…”

“Bit of a wild guy? Bit of a bad boy?”

“Yeah… Oh, my father would hate that,” she grinned, “But, you know, I just can’t be dealing with any of these well-to-do types.”

“Exactly. And I’m not here for him, I’m here for you,” she assured her.

Cassandra beamed, putting a hand to her chest. “That’s so nice! I didn’t think I’d have anything like this tonight! Oh, and not too religious?”

“Not too religious, okay…”

“No. I can’t be having a man who is like,  _ oh praise the Gods, you’re a gift to us from the Gods, _ I’m not… I’m not doing that.”

“Okay, okay. That’s fine.”

“And not too business minded?”

“Not too business minded? Okay…”

“I’m sick of this,” Cassandra scoffed. “My whole life my father’s just been yapping on and on and on about the business. I don’t  _ care. _ I don’t want anything to do with that. I’ve never worked a day in my life, and I want it to stay that way,” she declared.

“Would you be happy for him to go out and do the work that your father is asking about?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t care what he does,” Cassandra shrugged.

“And you’re okay if he just does what your father tells him to do, or you want him to be a bit more forthright?”

“Mm…”

“Or does that not really matter to you, that’s not important…?”

“I get the impression,” Cassandra frowned, “That my father really wants a man who is just gonna bend to his will, wrap around his little finger… but my father’s gonna be gone long before my husband.”

“...Valid.”

“I don’t want to be left with a damp towel of a man.”

“Okay, mhm, you want someone to hold his own?”

“Yeah!”

“Someone who is gonna take care of you for years to come.”

“Precisely.”

Pandora finished up her notes. “Love it, love it, love you!”

Cassandra leaned forwards to gossip. “My mother was a beautiful elven woman, and I’m gonna live a substantially longer time than my father…”

“Mhm?”

“And I don’t want to be taking care of his business for even a second.”

“Mhm… Yeah, that’s absolutely understandable. Okay, great! Is there anything else? That’s a good list you’ve given me…”

“Hm… I think that’s a good start.”

“That’s a good start.”

“If I think of anything, I’ll tell you.”

“Absolutely,” Pandora assured her. “I’m gonna be with you all night, and if there’s anything you wanna talk to me about, you want some girl time away from all that, just to talk and get something off your chest, or I can give them plus and minus points…”

“Oh, yeah.”

“We’ll have fun. We’ll have fun tonight!”

“Oh yeah, I definitely want your opinion on all of these people!”

“Of course, that’s what I’m here for,” Pandora smiled.

Cassandra turned back around to her cousin. “So it seems like you’re not needed here,” she teased.

Hera raised a brow. “Seems not…”

“No, your cousin’s opinion is incredibly important as well,” Pandora mediated. “But like we said, it’s all about you tonight.”

“Good,” Cassandra grinned. “I’m looking forward to that.”

“Now are you all ready for this evening, or are we doing anything else with hair, makeup, face?”

Cassandra shifted in her seat, presenting herself. “What do you think? Do I look okay?”

“You look beautiful,” she assured her.

Cassandra frowned. “My father wants me to like, wear a veil?”

“A veil? ...That’s kind of archaic, don’t you think?”

“Well yeah, I thought so. If they can’t see my face, then how are they gonna fall in love with me?”

“Exactly.”

“So maybe I’ll wear it down there, and then I’ll just take it off…”

“I’ll tell you what, we can do a big reveal,” Pandora offered.

Cassandra’s eyes lit up.

“You know, I did something like that for the daughter of the Governor of Shadebourne,” Pandora lied. “She came down the stairs in this full length veil, and as she got to the bottom, it dropped.”

Cassandra’s eyes grew even wider with delight. “Oh, you’re definitely an expert.”

“I’m good at what I do,” Pandora laughed, playing the role perfectly. “I don’t want to toot my own horn, but, I’m good at what I do.”

“What is it that you do for the council?”

“I’m an advisor,” Pandora covered. “For exactly this sort of thing, agreeable matches and marriages. Quite a niche market that we’re in, there’s not very many of us…”

Cassandra considered the lie for a moment, her expression almost completely blank. “Yeah, okay!”

“Okay,” Pandora stood, “Well, if you need a couple of hours just to get ready, to relax…”

“Oh, no! You have to stay and we can have girl time,” Cassandra beamed.

“Oh, we can have girl time!”

“Yeah! Hera’s gonna do my nails,” Cassandra turned in her seat, wiggling her fingers to her cousin.

Pandora panicked a bit, having thought that she was going to be able to escape. Unfortunately, she had played the part too well. “That’s fine, we’ll have girl time… Can we get like, some fruit platters or something? Is that something we can do here?”

“Yeah. Hera, ring the bell?”

Hera leaned over to the back of the bed, pulling a little cord that went into the ceiling. A bell sounded in the distance.

Downstairs, Mayes saw Greta look over to the bell. “Ah. That is Cassandra’s alarm,” she gestured. “I’ll send someone to go see her.”

A fruit platter was brought up, and for the next couple of hours, Cassandra talked at Pandora. Pandora was absolutely withering inside. Cassandra wasn’t awful, but she was a bit like a beautiful pie with no filling. There wasn’t much going on upstairs.

  
  


As it grew to late afternoon, Icarus scrambled his way outside so he would be seen arriving. He had been hanging out in the garden all day, nonchalantly playing with the flowers. He saw a number of carriages and people riding on horses at the bottom of the steps outside the villa as a stream of people prepared to come in.

Icarus staged his arrival, strolling back inside while Mayes and the rest of the staff separated into groups. Greta sent them into the grand hall to wait at the edges with a water jug. Pandora was led into the grand hall, where she saw the four large gilded seats at the front, placed on a slightly elevated stage. Krios sat in one, and Hera took her place at his side.

Cassandra ushered her over with excitement. “Daddy, this is the advisor!”

Pandora was wishing she had her anxiety potion.

They took their seats. All of the torches and braziers were lit, hanging from the ceiling all the way down the hall. Huge columns stood every ten feet or so around the edge of the massive hall. The doors opened, and Icarus was able to enter, taking a seat at the back. The suitors would present once all the guests had arrived.

Slowly, the stream of people came in. It wasn’t just suitors, as many guests came with their entourages, and their staff carrying the gifts that they had brought. A huge number of people entered, including hobgoblins, humans, elves, half-orcs, and even a drow amongst them.

Icarus’s blood ran cold as he saw Alexis Leonida and his father enter the hall.

  
  



	14. Dinner & Diatribes, Episode Fourteen

They sat in the grand hall, a huge, sprawling room, with four seats at the front where Kreios, Cassandra, Hera, and Pandora sat. There were plenty of seats around the floor, with long floor to ceiling columns every ten feet, braziers hanging between them.

Kreios himself was dressed in finery, and on one shoulder, a cream, woolen cloak hung down, sparkling slightly in the light. His daughter was dressed up as well, wearing a veil for her big reveal, while Pandora sat beside her in her disguise.

Mayes was standing to the side with a jug of water, while Icarus had entered the hall to take a seat and wait for the other suitors to arrive. There, he saw Alexis Leonida and his father High Councilor Leonida walk into the hall.

Alexis didn’t immediately spot him, but Icarus didn’t duck or hide his head at all. Alexis crossed to another seat, sitting up straight and politely behind his father.

The other suitors filled the room with various servants, entourages, and gifts. There was a brimming hubbub of excitement and conversation in the room, as this was quite the event to be attending. Icarus made small talk with the people near him.

After a short while, Kreios called out for order, and the room fell silent. He asked the suitors to line up to introduce themselves, giving their name and any credentials they had, passing over their gift, and pitching themselves as a suitable candidate for Cassandra.

First in the queue was Voltus Amaria, one of the suitors they had been told about before. He was a tall, larger, muscular hobgoblin with short dark hair. Approaching the front, he introduced himself as Voltus Amaria, son of Vidius. He looked to be in his mid-twenties. Gesturing for his servants to come forward, they laid out ten barrels of fine wine in front of him.

“One for each acre of land I hold,” he declared. “I promise that the wealth of my land that I’ve inherited from my father will become part of Lord Kreios’s estate.”

The announcement stirred general uproar, praise, and some distaste from the other suitors. He had with him seven or eight servants who laid out the barrels. Kreios came down to inspect them, looking pleased. “Thank you, Amaria. Please, you may take a seat.”

The servants moved the barrels to the side of the seats.

Cassandra leaned over to Pandora. “He’s okay, I suppose. Do you have any opinion?”

“I’m just going to see what we have to work with,” she replied.

“You’re right, you’re right. There’s plenty more to come.”

“You just tell me any first impressions that you have, and I will note those down for you.”

“Thank you,” Cassandra beamed. “You’re so helpful.”

“Because who is this night about?”

Cassandra put a hand over her chest, looking pleased. “Me. It’s about me,” she chuckled.

Next in the queue was an older human man with dark skin and even darker hair. He was shorter than Voltus, but had lean muscle from clear hard work. He had a nose that seemed to have been broken at least once, and not set quite right, though he had a reasonably attractive face. He introduced himself as Lord Stelios Paneas of Erran.

Kreios gave him a look of recognition. Stelios was a friend, and Kreios had told the trio before that he wasn’t entirely impressed with him, as someone perhaps too local.

Stelios announced he had brought four of his finest stud horses as a gift, to which they all saw Kreios’s face drop a bit.

“Those poor creatures deserve to be cared for and cherished, just as I cherish you, Cassandra,” Stelios announced.

Cassandra made a bit of a face, leaning over to Pandora. “I don’t like this man.”

“That’s okay, that’s okay,” Pandora assured her. “We’ll put a big X over this one.”

“You know, he’s just… You know he’s a horse farmer?”

“Really?”

“I don’t really like horses, so…”

“That’s fine, I will note that down.”

“Thank you,” she grinned.

Icarus approached the front of the room, giving them a bow. “My name is Antoni Nowak, son of Merius Nowak, from Eras Minorix. We are a large fishing family that want to expand into agriculture, with many good trade routes through Briny Run that we’d be able to share. I’d like to offer you a seed. It might not look like much, but it has been charmed. It will be instantaneous the moment it is planted, but it will make the land around it fertile for a whole year, and make sure that all of the crops grow exponentially.”

“Quite the gift,” Kreios nodded.

“And for you,” Icarus held out the flower out to Cassandra. “An everlasting bloom for an everlasting beauty.”

Cassandra’s surprised smile flickered through the veil. Her fingers brushed against his as she took the flower. “Thank you so much… I’m surprised I haven’t heard of you before.”

“We’re a family that keep to ourselves,” Icarus covered.

He bowed, and made his exit. Cassandra raised the flower up, smelling it under the veil and whispering to Pandora. “He was very handsome.”

“He is very handsome, isn't he,” Pandora noted that down, starting to worry.

Mayes was carefully watching Alexis. His eyes had widened slightly, squinting in concern as Icarus stepped forwards. He was now trying very hard to control his expression, though his father hadn’t seemed to notice the reaction.

Kreios thanked Icarus. “That’s a very good gift,” he muttered in thought. He gestured for Icarus to take a seat by the front, and Icarus did.

The next suitor to approach the front was a slender, feminine looking blonde elven man. He looked about thirty, with a lyre hanging at his side. He introduced himself in a relatively shy voice as Antheo of Kaerisa, offering Kreios some finely painted pottery.

From where Pandora and Icarus were seated at the front, they saw Cassandra shuffle to straighten up in her seat as he approached.

He leaned forwards slightly, turning to Cassandra after his introduction. In quite a lilting tone, he spoke.

  
  


_ “Tell me dear Cassandra of something fiercer _

_ Than the love which I gaze upon you. _

_ Of something softer _

_ Than the tenderness with which I hold you in my heart. _

_ I hunger for your mouth, _

_ Your voice, _

_ Your hair. _

_ You are a water nymph from the ocean rising, _

_ And I, _

_ A humble wave, _

_ Hoping for just one touch.” _

  
  


Kreios looked very unimpressed.

Cassandra, on the other hand, shifted in her seat and pretended not to react.

Kreios looked down at the man. “Alright. Thank you…” he gave a dismissive wave, disappointed with the candidates so far.

Alexis was the next to the front, his father High Councillor Ivan beside him. Ivan greeted Kreios with familiarity, and they bowed to each other.

“High Councilor,” Kreios nodded.

“My lord,” Ivan returned. “I present my youngest son and sole heir, Alexis. He is on track to replace me one day as High Councillor of Erran.”

Alexis had a slightly forced smile on his face, offering Kreios a golden ram statue. Kreios’s face ignited with a bit more excitement than he had shown so far. They had a brief exchange of pleasantries before Alexis and his father were dismissed, with not a word out of Alexis.

They came to sit next to Icarus. Alexis sat beside him, glancing over at him to squint in confusion. Icarus didn’t react to him, but he noticed Alexis had his mouth tightly sealed. He clearly didn’t want to say anything just yet.

The next suitor up was a tall, tan skinned human man in his early twenties. He had a handsome face, a defined body, and very soulful dark eyes. Approaching, Cassandra looked up from her lap, raising a hand in a slight wave.

The man’s eyes shone, lingering on her for a moment. He kneeled, introducing himself as Onias Rossoglou of Erran.

Kreios told him to stand. “You need not kneel before a friend.”

Onias stood again, and went on to offer Kreios a gilded chariot, which already been presented earlier this morning, and was waiting outside. He turned to Cassandra, and said, “Cassandra, my dearest friend, I’d really rather your father chose someone else besides me, but you deserve the best, and that’s why I’m here.”

Cassandra laughed, waving him off dismissively. She leaned over to Pandora. “Do you think he’s handsome?”

“I think he’s very well put together,” Pandora returned.

“Hm. Wasn’t so handsome when he was twelve.”

“That’s always the case. They age like fine wine,” Pandora bantered.

“Maybe they’ll all get better as they get older, then…”

The next person in line was a pale, sallow faced human, wearing a dark noble robe in a style definitely not local to Erran. He approached with a small mousey boy who looked no older than twelve, carrying a golden statue of a ship. The man inclined his head, gesturing the boy forwards.

The boy, in a very shaky voice, introduced himself as Titus Lucanus, son of Lord Tyraneous Lucanus. He held out the golden ship statue. “I heard you were really pretty…”

Cassandra froze up next to Pandora in the seats. “Oh, Gods…”

His father went on to explain that they offered not the golden ship, but a year of free passage over the Shaiste Lake for the entire household, on his expense.

In the audience, Onias laughed before quickly covering his mouth. Kreios shot him a look, but then turned his eyes back to Tyraneous, the father, asking why he offered his younger son and not his older son, Ryeska.

Tyraneous pulled a grimace. He replied that Titus was young, earnest, and had a long life expectancy, with a large inheritance. Kreios shifted in his seat, accepted it, and dismissed them to the side.

Next was a half-orc man with huge shoulders and muscular thighs, wearing a typical chiton with plate armour over the top. His skin was slicked with gold paint over a number of scars. At his side was a dainty human woman with fair hair, and as they reached the front, the woman stepped forward. She introduced herself as Cleonola Tharisse, a patron to the Maw. She introduced the man as Thebus, one of her family’s gladiators, offering patronage to him as a gift to Kreios.

A wealthy person may become a patron to a gladiator, paying for all of their expenses, while taking most of the profits from their wins in return. It typically earned more money than it cost, as anywhere from 50% to 90% of their profit would go to the family. It wasn’t uncommon for the patrons to look after several gladiators, housing them, and paying for their food and clothing. By offering a gladiator, she was presenting a massive financial investment for the future.

Kreios looked pleased, but surprised, if a bit less pleased to see a woman offering herself.

Cleonola declared, “As my wife, Cassandra would be deeply cherished and well supported, and want for nothing. I promise her a life of passion and interest, with never a dull moment ahead of her. Our families could join their industries and run an empire in Erran.”

Kreios nodded, looking to consider it before he dismissed them to the side. Cassandra had been completely motionless behind the veil.

Another half-orc approached, this time on his own. He wasn’t as finely dressed as the other suitors, wearing instead a beautiful piece of black steel armour. He had dark hair shaved down both sides, and large tusks. Introducing himself as Idaeus Stathou, Kreios interrupted him.

“A blacksmith?” the Lord interjected.

Idaeus confirmed the question, stating that he supplied armour to several top gladiators.

From where she was sitting, Cleonola waved a hand. “I can vouch.”

Idaeus offered a huge, golden, decorative shield as a gift. It was beautifully embossed. “Your daughter will never lack for affection, and our business will never fail. Always needed in Erran.”

Kreios considered it, but said nothing else, dismissing him away.

They were through more than half of the suitors by now. The next person to approach was a short, slender drow, with long slicked back white hair and purple skin nearly as dark as charcoal. He had a very sour expression, wearing knights armour emblazoned with a mountain and a flower on the front. His face wasn’t exceptionally handsome, but his bright blue eyes were very striking against his dark skin.

He introduced himself as Sir Dion Veritus of Shadebourne. His servants rolled in a set of full plate armour studded with diamonds, which he declared were from under the mountains. “With such great wealth in my family, it would be our pleasure to share it with Lord Kreios and his family. Someone blessed by a ram of Sehanine is surely someone special.”

Kreios regarded him, eyes flicking over him. “It’s a pleasure to have you.” He smiled, gesturing him to the side. His eyes lingered on the beautiful set of armour as it rolled off to the growing pile of gifts the servants ordered at the side.

A much older man followed. He had pointed elven ears, and displeasing, rough, human features, with thinning grey hair and a sour faced expression. He entered flanked by five strikingly beautiful female servants, introducing himself as Viscount Gaius Carnifex of Elenithil. Despite his appearance, he had a fairly charismatic, alluring voice, offering a rare scrying stone to Kreios. “Cassandra will have all that pleases her, dripping in wealth. And your line, of course, will marry into royalty.”

Kreios looked immediately very pleased. Cassandra, on the other hand, had a quite drawn back reaction. Turning to Pandora, she whispered again. “That’s a lot of beautiful women around him…”

“Yeah, aren’t they…” Pandora noticed.

“Is he trying to make a harem?”

“I would hope not,” Pandora frowned. “You deserve better than that.”

Cassandra beamed. “I do. You’re right, I do.”

The last few lined up. There was a small goblin man, with grey hair and a stringy beard around an unpleasant, aging face. He was decorated in very rich fabrics, and a wealth of heavy jewels. He bowed to Kreios, reaching below knee height as he did.

“My Lord,” he began. “Tithe Tanyth, brother of Councilor Tanyth.”

He offered a fine dust in a stone container, which he claimed was imbued with the power to make anyone tell the truth. “My family line is strong and fertile, with a hand in many pots, not just politics. You will not be let down by us. If our family is united, I offer 30% of all our property to your household.”

Under her breath, Cassandra grimaced. “Gods, no…”

Pandora leaned her notes towards Cassandra, drawing an exaggerated cross through the name.

“That makes me feel better,” she sighed.

On the other hand, Kreios looked to be considering it. “Pleasant to meet you Tanyth. Take a seat.”

A red scaled dragonborn wearing long orange robes and carrying a large book came next. He introduced himself as Lorzize, an Arakian scholar and mage from the College of Arcana. He offered a selection of valuable books, and exotic perfumes and fabrics from across the sea in Ospeia. “Our union would unite the east and west. Our two families will be unstoppable.”

Kreios made pleasantries, and led him on.

The next man was tall and rugged looking, a very handsome hobgoblin with military short hair and battle worn armour, followed by a couple of servants carrying a large trunk. Before he could introduce himself, Kreios bowed his head. “Armiger. I didn’t think you’d come.”

The man introduced himself as Castor Allandrus, Armiger of Erran. A political figurehead and champion of the citystate, Armigers would protect Erran and visit citystates to deal with similar problems. “As Armiger, I offer Cassandra not only the protection of myself, but also of all of Erran, and by extension, all of the continent.”

Kreios looked very pleased to see Castor in attendance, and continued smiling even after Castor had seated himself.

Cassandra quirked her head. It was hard to see her expression through the veil, but she was certainly paying attention again.

There were two more. The first was nearly six and a half feet tall. The broad shoulders of a laborer were disguised under a military uniform that only just fit around his chest. Long brown hair was curled around his face, merging with a thick beard. With animal-like features and furred ears, the trio recognized him as a shifter. He introduced himself as Captain Ursus Bismarck of Marlborough. He brought a gift of adamantine goblets, embossed with fae stories of myth and legend.

“The history of Erran and Marlborough is long and bloody. This union would be the first step to reparations for the war siege between our lands. Your beautiful daughter would be treated as an equal in my household, and your household would secure acres of farmland in Marlborough.”

Kreios shifted slightly. “Welcome, Urus Bismarck. You are greatly welcomed here. Please, take a seat.”

The two goblets were placed on the gathering treasure horde.

Finally, a pale freckled human man with a crop of blonde hair and a light spattering of stubble stepped forwards, wearing an eastern naval uniform that Icarus recognized.

He introduced himself as Lieutenant Commander Dietrich Graf of Farrelstadt. He presented Kreios with a new ship, flush with Farrelstadt naval technologies. “Lady Cassandra, your beauty is renowned throughout the continent. If you were my bride, I would never allow you to wilt in the quiet rooms of an estate, but instead, encourage you to bloom and find your own power. Farrelstadt would be proud to have a Kreios in our midst, and we would be open to any trade negotiations with our navy.”

Kreios cocked his head. It was quite evident on his face that he didn’t recognize the man, but he considered the offer, seeming pleased.

Icarus thought on the name. He recognized the name Graf, though the last time he had heard it, the Lieutenant Commander title hadn’t been attached. He hadn’t met this man before, though.

The presentations concluded, the suitors, servants, and entourages sat through the hall, talking amongst themselves as Kreios reviewed them.

  
  


Mayes went around pouring water for people, listening in to bits of conversation. They heard a few snippets, overhearing a few people quietly talking amongst themselves. “Do you think I was impressive?” , “Oh, I made a bloody idiot of myself…”

They also overheard a couple of the people who had introduced themselves as from Erran gossiping between themselves about the people from across the continent. “How did they hear about this?” , “Why do they care about Kreios?” , “Surely this should be our territory of daughters to marry…”

They caught sight of Castor glancing around the room, checking out the suitors and making his own judgements, but they didn’t hear anything else of use throughout the night.

  
  


Pandora had been taking notes the entire time, taking into account Cassandra’s initial reactions to them. As they drifted away, starting to chat amongst themselves, she leaned back over to Cassandra.

“Are there any that particularly stand out to you? Any take your fancy? Or any that you absolutely, under no circumstance, would want anywhere near you?”

“Well,” Cassandra frowned. “I mean, I’m not marrying the goblin.”

“That’s fine, that’s the one we put a big cross through, so that’s fine,” she assured her.

“He looks like he’s way past his prime. And goblins don’t live that long…”

“And we want him to be able to take care of you, for however many years.”

“Exactly,” Cassandra agreed.

“And… are we saying no to the twelve year old?”

_ “Please,” _ Cassandra replied.

“Don’t worry, I've got you!”

“The fact that Father called out that he had another son, and they sent this one? I’m offended, to be honest…”

“What is with that?” Pandora wondered. “Maybe we should talk to him about that…”

“Maybe we should…”

“Any of them that immediately stand out to you? Any that... tickle your pickle?” Pandora needled.

Cassandra considered a moment, and then gestured gently to Icarus, Alexis, Castor, and Antheo.

“Okay, okay… the night is still young,” Pandora assured her. “Still plenty of time to get to know them.”

“Plenty of time,” Cassandra echoed. “And… shortly, I’m going to go have to speak to them all on my own. So...”

“That’s fine. So you can get to know them a bit better, you can narrow down your lists…”

“When Father announces that, I’ll do my reveal,” she smiled.

“You save it for that big moment,” Pandora encouraged.

“Yeah… Makes me feel better, having you here.”

“Oh, I’m so happy to hear that. Are you okay? Do you need anything, you need water?”

“...Yes,” Cassandra snapped at a group of servants. “Can I get some water?”

Mayes quickly moved over, filling her glass.

“Thank you. You’re new,” Cassandra mused.

Mayes gave a short nod. “Yes.”

“You’re doing great.”

Mayes bowed their head, quickly scuttling away.

  
  


At his table, Icarus made idle talk with the person next to him that was  _ not _ Alexis, keeping an eye on Graf. Graf sat by himself at the end of one row. He made idle chitchat with those who tried to speak with him, but he wasn’t making any effort to specifically connect with anyone.

The suitors started to get up and move around to chat with one another. Moving to speak to someone, Ivan glanced back at his son. “Just wait, Alexis.”

As Icarus got up, Alexis grabbed his sleeve.

Icarus stopped, looking innocent. “Can I help?”

“We need to talk.”

“...Sure.”

“Perhaps outside.”

“Lead the way.”

Alexis got up casually, smiling at people and saying hello as he passed them. Icarus did the same.

Alexis led them out of the hall and into the corridor beyond. Icarus watched him deflate slightly, turning around. “What the hell is going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“What are you doing here?”

“...I was invited,” Icarus replied.

“No no, but what…” he sputtered. “What are you doing? What’s with the, the… fake name, and… what, you’re here to marry Cassandra Kreios?”

Icarus sighed. “Alexis, I need you to… I need you to keep this to yourself.”

“...Okay?”

“My name isn’t Icarus Pelayo.”

Alexis blanched. “...What?”

“What I said out there is the truth,” Icarus lied. “I’ve been sent here by my family. I was sent to Delphos to study, and become better at everything.”

Alexis blinked. “With a fake name? No! Like… Lorakai is your father!”

“No, he’s been my guardian. He’s been looking after me.”

Alexis was blindsided, but he believed him. “...Okay…”

“No one else can know about this. My family keeps themselves to themselves, okay?”

“But all these people can know?”

“Nobody knows who I am,” Icarus reasoned. “This is the first time we’ve really expanded out from where we are. Why do you think that Mayes and Pandora and I went to Eras Minorix a few days ago?”

“I don’t know, I don’t keep track of what you’re doing.”

“Well, we went to go see my family.”

Alexis looked away, shaking his head. “...Well, hell. I can’t believe you never told me this.”

“You never asked,” Icarus apologized. “And it just, it didn’t- ”

“How am I gonna assume to ask?” Alexis argued.  _ “Oh, is that your real name?” _

Icarus rubbed his head. “Listen, I’m sorry.”

Alexis shook his head. “I don’t know what I should be feeling right now… You’re an ass.”

Icarus swallowed, shrugging slightly. “Yeah, well, so are you.”

“...Fine. I’ll keep your little secret.”

“Thank you.”

Alexis looked genuinely hurt. “Okay. So I don’t know you. At least it’ll be easy enough to pretend that.”

He went back inside the hall.

Icarus followed.

As they walked, Kreios stood from his chair to quiet everyone down again. Glancing to the back of the hall, he saw Icarus walk in shortly after Alexis, raising a brow. “Right, right,” he addressed the crowd. “For the next portion of the evening, my beautiful daughter Cassandra is going to be seeing each of you alone for ten minutes outside in the courtyard. This is your chance to impress her, it’s not just me that you’re here to impress today. Be polite. I will be hearing from her, as to her opinion. Let’s start with you, Voltus. Cassandra?”

Cassandra stood from her chair, fixing her hair. “Okay… Here I go! ...I’m gonna be okay, right?”

“You’re gonna be spectacular,” Pandora assured her.

Standing up, Cassandra lifted off the veil, beaming.

She didn’t get quite the response she wanted for doing it, though quite a few of the men looked up to appreciate how stunning she was underneath it.

“Voltus?” she grinned.

She allowed him to take her arm, and lead her out through the crowd. Quite a few people turned their heads to see her, watching her go.

  
  


It was half past five. Until eight, Cassandra would be swapping out with a different suitor every ten minutes. The suitors mingled around the room, talking quietly amongst themselves. They were still in Kreios’s presence, and the trio got the impression that while he was in the room, the guests would keep their demeanours as well presenting as they possibly could.

Icarus wandered over to Antheo. “Hi,” he smiled.

“Hi.”

“So this is a lot, right? Lots of people going around?”

“Yeah, quite… quite a lot of people.”

“You seem tense,” Icarus grinned. “You okay?”

“Well, how are you not? Such competition…”

“At the end of the day, it’s up to her, isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s up to her father.”

“Well yeah,” Icarus admitted, “But you’ve got to impress both.”

“Mm…” he sighed, looking off wistfully.

“You okay?”

“She’s just so wonderful.”

“Have you known her long?”

“Oh, not… Not long, no.”

“How did you meet?”

Anthro sputtered a moment. “I, um, I haven’t met her before…”

“Oh? It came across that you knew her…”

“No, no…”

“So you just…?” Icarus trailed off, switching tactics. “Where you from?”

“Oh, I’m from here in Erran.”

“Yeah?”

Antheo nodded.

“You go to the Maw?”

“No, not really my thing,” he apologized.

“Oh, I bet you’d write some great songs about the stuff that goes on there,” Icarus encouraged.

Antheo chuckled. “Well, I’m more of an amphitheatre kind of man.”

“Oh yeah? I’ll come check it out then, sometime.”

“Oh! Well… that would be nice, I think…”

“Sure,” Icarus gave a friendly smile. “So how did you hear about this, then? If you’ve never met her before?”

“Well, from a family friend.”

“Yeah? What does your family do?”

“They’re in music, and performance.”

“That’s really cool,” Icarus encouraged.

“Actors.”

“That’s awesome! Everyone needs to go and see productions. It’s important, you know?”

“Yes,” he agreed enthusiastically. “It is, it’s very, very important. I could talk for hours…” he started to launch into an impassioned speech about the arts as Icarus eagerly listened.

  
  


As they talked, Pandora threw caution to the wind and headed over to Alexis.

Alexis was trying to mingle on his own without straying too far from his father. As she approached, he raised an eyebrow.

“Hi there,” Pandora greeted. “Alexis, is it?”

“Yes?”

“Hi, I’m Areina. I’m going to be helping Cassandra choose her husband-to-be this evening. And I just thought I’d come around and talk to everyone, see how everyone’s feeling, how it’s all going, what you’re bringing to the table…”

As she spoke, her accent slipped slightly a few times. Thankfully, Alexis was good at keeping a straight face, and much more in control of himself than she had ever seen him at school.

“Right. Well, what did you want to know?” Alexis returned.

“Well, a lot of the people here introduced themselves, but I noticed that you were one of the ones who didn’t. Is there… Is there a reason for that at all?”

Alexis frowned, looking away.

“Not one for crowds, or…?” Pandora prodded. “I know not everyone enjoys picking themselves up to such an extent, and this is quite the gathering of people- ”

“It isn’t, please,” Alexis interjected. “It isn’t that…”

“What is it, then?”

“...Kreios and my father know each other already, so.”

“Okay. Have you ever met Cassandra before?”

“No.”

“No?”

Alexis sighed. “No,” he repeated.

“And… what do you think of her?”

“...Well I don’t really know her,” Alexis frowned. As he finished speaking, his face flickered, realizing he shouldn’t have said that. “Um, she seems charming,” he amended. “Very beautiful, obviously, she’s known for her beauty… um… and good heritage…”

“Mhm. Would she potentially be what you’re looking for, in another half? Because of course, even though she’s the one choosing this evening, we’ve got to make sure it’s a mutual thing…”

“Yes, obviously,” Alexis replied. “Um… I think we’d make a great match.”

“Mhm…”

Alexis swallowed.

Pandora didn’t believe him one bit. When he spoke, it sounded like his father’s words coming from his mouth.

“You know, as far as I’m aware,” he continued, “Cassandra and I are… I’m the closest in age to her, of any of the suitors here, to start with. And um… with my father being a High Councilor of Erran, it’s a very good match, especially for Kreios. Seeing as they’re already familiar with each other, and agriculture holds a lot of power here… As does, obviously, being a Councilor…”

“So a good political match,” Pandora summarized.

“Yes. And I intend to follow in his footsteps, so…”

“So is that what you think you’re destined for, to be High Councilor one day?”

He chuckled a bit darkly. “Is it really a case of what you’re destined for, or just what you’re good at?”

“What you’re good at…” Pandora nodded, considering. “What you’re told to do…”

“...I suppose it’s your job here to get quite personal.”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

“I’m good at it,” Alexis declared.

Pandora scribbled into her notes. “I’m sure you are.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of people to be getting around to,” he stepped back.

“I do. Lovely talking to you.”

Alexis let out a big sigh.

Pandora pointed over to a servant with a tray of drinks. “Maybe have one or two of those before going out, get the courage up a bit.”

“Sure,” he nodded.

Pandora went off.

  
  


Continuing to listen, Mayes tried to search out the gossip. They first learned that Idaeus was widowed. Next, they heard a rumor through a couple of conversations that suggested Antheo once married a goat on some sort of bet, while another voice argued that he still hadn't divorced the goat. This was passed around mainly by Stelios and Onias.

Cleo, the woman, and the older man, Gaius, chatted together quite happily. They talked about the arena, and what it was like to be a gladiator patron as Gaius expressed his interest.

A couple of people talked about Dion, the drow from Shadebourne, suggesting that he was in debt. Someone else gossiped that Ursus, the shifter, didn’t have an actual title, and he had faked it.

Later, Mayes heard the suggestion that the appearance of Titus, the twelve year old, meant an ill omen for their family. Finally, they got the impression that Castor, Voltus, and Onias seemed to all know each other.

  
  


It wasn’t long before Voltus’s time was up. Pandora swooped in as Cassandra returned. “Yes? No?”

“He’s okay,” Cassandra mused.

“Okay…”

“I don’t know, he’s not the worst, but...”

“Should we give him a five?”

“Yeah. He’s only okay looking, and I don’t know, he knows my father… That’s just weird.”

“Well, a lot of people know your father, and a lot of people don’t know your father…”

“I know, but… he’s a business guy, you know? Does a vineyard, he’s a businessman… it’s gonna bore me, for the rest of my life to be on a farm, just over there…” she nodded out the window.

“That’s fine,” Pandora nodded. “You want something new and exciting.”

“Yeah.”

  
  


Castor was sent over, and he headed back out to the gardens to speak with Cassandra. They went out through the main doors across the break in the staff corridor, heading to the courtyard.

Mayes followed them out, sliding through. Nobody paid attention to a staff member slipping out of the grand hall with a tray. Mayes followed them to the garden, hiding between the hedges. After a few moments, Mayes realized that Castor had noticed them. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes certainly slid over to them.

Mayes busied themselves as if they had lost something, giving Castor a polite nod. They pretended to look around for a few moments, and then scuttled back inside.

In those few seconds, Cassandra showed immediate interest. “So tell me about your adventures…”

He started to regale her with the same stories he had been telling inside.

She exaggerated her enjoyment of it, laughing flirtily. “That’s so interesting!”

  
  


Inside the main hall, Kreios stood to leave, disappearing off somewhere else in the building. There was a general deflation of the crowd as he left, with particularly some of the younger men chirping up a bit to get more friendly with each other.

Icarus found himself a bit distracted by Alexis, worrying over the betrayal. Pandora and Mayes were able to notice Voltus immediately joining some of the other younger suitors and staff members upon his return.

Looking after Castor as he left, Voltus rolled his eyes. “Ugh, that guy. Do you know how much of an asshole that guy is? Do you know that he stole my last fiancée? And he just ditched her, after a while? Can you believe that?” He seemed to be pretty confident in what he was saying, an angry tick on his face as he spoke.

Icarus approached Dietrich. He was now standing by the edge of the room, watching the crowd.

“Not a people person?” Icarus grinned.

“Not really about this sort of event.”

“No, it’s a bit pretentious, huh?”

“Yeah…”

“Why’d you come?”

He shrugged. “Farrelstadt had to have some sort of representative.”

“Fair. No one else around? There’s quite a few more people who would be interested, if you’re not this kind of person.”

“Well, I’d be interested in the marriage, but not so much the pretense.”

“Oh, that’s fair, that’s fair.”

“You?”

“Small family,” Icarus repeated the lie. “Trying to make a name of themselves by sending their son out here. You know how it can be.”

“I know exactly how it can be,” he chuckled.

“So you’re from the Farrelstadt navy?”

“Yes.”

“Lieutenant Commander, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct. You were paying attention,” he chuckled.

“Of course,” Icarus returned. “It’s a very impressive title.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“Worked my way into it.”

“Yeah? Your family always been in the navy?”

“Well, some of them.”

“Been a long time since my family… My family used to, um, communicate with Farrelstadt. But I was so small, I don’t even remember it that much. Uh…” Icarus took a long drink. “What was that name… uh… Niklaus?”

“...Um, I mean, it’s not an uncommon name…”

“Müller,” Icarus pressed. “Müller was the surname, I think.”

“Yeah?”

“Um, my older brother used to know him, but… It’s the only name I remember from Farrelstadt. How’s he doing, so I can relay that back?”

“I…” he chuckled, “Very presumptuous of you to assume that I know him, but I actually do…”

Icarus shrugged, “If you’re involved with the navy…”

“I haven’t seen him in awhile,” Graf answered.

“Oh, that’s a shame.”

“Been a couple years, actually, so I couldn’t tell you.”

“Fair.”

“Yeah, he was in Farrelstadt for a while, but he hasn’t been back.”

“Oh, that’s a shame, I’ll have to tell my brother about that. It was nice to meet you, though.”

Graf raised a brow at him. “Are there many tritons around here? Sorry, that’s really presumptuous…”

Icarus laughed. “Well, there’s my family,” he reasoned.

“Right, of course…”

“More over on Eras Minorix,” Icarus covered. “Not really on Erran, it’s so warm here.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard from a fair few… You know there’s a fair few of them in Farrelstadt? I’ve heard that it’s much nicer where it’s cooler, where it rains a lot.”

“Sure,” Icarus kept the smile plastered on. “I’ve not been there, so… just my brother told me how great it was.”

“It’s alright. It’s not got the beautiful sunshine, like this place, but if you don’t like that…”

“It is very warm here, but I’m used to it, and I like the atmosphere.”

Graf nodded. “Yeah, I like it here. Could get used to this.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it was nice to speak to you. Hope to see you around.”

“And you,” he returned. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

Graf looked him up and down as Icarus walked away.

Icarus went out to veranda, taking a moment to calm his panicking heart. Pandora continued to mingle, trying to eavesdrop. After Icarus chilled himself out, he did his best to merge with the crowd, pretending everything was just great.

  
  


Mayes slipped into the staff corridors, making their way back upstairs to their room to write down what they had heard so far. Next, they planned to break into some rooms.

Mayes made it to their own room with no problem, writing everything down. At the moment, there were no staff members upstairs. From Greta’s schedule, they knew the staff were all preparing the banquet now. They had two hours, and it was go-time down in the kitchen.

There were two other guest rooms in their half of the house, with ten at the other end, two in the center, and one in the garden.

Mayes looked through randomly, searching for Dion, Ursus, Dietrich, and Lorzize. They went from room to room, and several appeared to have nothing more than a small trunk of possessions.

They weren’t able to find Ursus’s room, but they found Dion’s based on the travelling cloak they recognized as not local. Another thing that caught their eye was the fact that there was nothing else in the room at all, aside from a small, still packed bag. They flicked through it quickly, knowing someone could appear at any time. After a few minutes, they found a small piece of paper folded up and tucked into a back pocket. Apart from that, there were just a few clothes and possessions.

Unfolding the paper, there was a sketch and a detailed description of a ram’s fleece cloak. It matched conspicuously with the mane of the lion they had released from the poachers, down to the same kind of hair.

Mayes wasn’t able to identify many of the rooms based on the very simple packing, but they did come across a room that seemed completely normal but for the presence of another gift, not given during the presentations. It was a fine necklace of diamonds on a platinum chain, with a note tucked inside the box that read,  _ “For you, my love. Never forget who you belong to. SP.” _

Stelios Paneas, Mayes guessed.

  
  


Castor returned. Cassandra came over to Pandora with a grin. “He was really charming,” she giggled.

“Mhm,” Pandora encouraged, taking notes. “Yeah? Good, good.”

“And didn’t flinch even once.”

“That's what I like to hear. What are we going to give out of ten?”

“A nine.”

“A nine?”

“Mhm.”

“We like a nine…” Pandora smiled. “Okay, who do you want to speak to next?”

She sighed. “Seeing as I have to, I’m gonna get the twelve year old out of the way. Before his bedtime.”

“Yeah,” Pandora frowned. “Don’t forget to ask him, why is his older brother not here?”

“Good point, I’ll do that.”

Cassandra stooped slightly to let the twelve year old take her arm, a frigid smile on her face as she led him out of the room.

His father went to follow, but Greta stopped him, informing him it was just the suitors, and he had to stay in the hall. The father took a deep breath in, looking worried, staring after his son and mentally warning him not to fuck it up.

Pandora slid over to him. “His first time?”

“Yes.”

“...He’s a little young, don’t you think?”

Lord Tyraneous frowned. “Not really. I mean, the marriage would have to wait until he was of marriage age, but it’s not that uncommon.”

“No, fair enough, fair enough… These things get organized earlier and earlier…”

“Hm… Sorry, I don’t believe we were introduced?”

“Oh, I’m Areina, I’m an aide to Cassandra.”

“Pleasure to meet you.”

“Pleasure to meet you too. What was this about an older brother?”

“Oh, yes. Well, he’s already betrothed, so…”

“Oh, I see, I see.”

“And Titus is going to grow up to be quite the man.”

“I’m sure he is,” Pandora placated him.

Tyraneous gave her a flat line smile. “Any more questions?”

“No, not for now. Best of luck to you.”

“Pleasure to meet you.”

“You too,” Pandora drifted off, trying not to throw up in her mouth.

  
  


Icarus puttered around by the suitors, listening in on their conversations. He overheard Onias gossiping that Stelios was a bit of a gambler. He was trying to coax other people at the party to take bets with Stelios, probably for Onias’s own entertainment.

Onias kept looking across the room. Icarus followed his gaze to see a couple of people at the end of it, with Voltus, Dietrich, and Ursus standing together. Onias chatted with the staff, briefly speaking to Idaeus, and to the goblin. He flitted around, seeming quite animated and cheerful, and definitely enjoying the event.

Glancing around for Alexis again, Icarus found him standing at the back of the room with a drink in his hand, not speaking to anyone.

  
  


As Mayes came back down the stairs, they glimpsed the drow walking through one of the hallways. Pursuing, Mayes followed him around two corners before they ran straight into some staff members.

“You’re needed in the kitchen,” they urged. “Everything’s very busy, come on, come on…”

“...Sure,” Mayes relented.

They allowed the staff to lead them away. As soon as they arrived in the kitchen, Mayes made their exit. “I’m busy elsewhere, I’m needed…”

Mayes went back to try and pick up the drow’s trail, heading back to the hallway. There were several doors down that way, but none were ajar.

Giving up on that, Mayes went into the staff corridor that lined the grand hall instead, moving along to listen to various conversations through the wall. They overheard a voice they identified as Stelios, declaring they couldn’t believe Voltus. “Did you hear that man stole Onias’s last fiancée?”

It was much different than the rumor they had heard before, but it certainly sounded like Stelios believed it. He spoke on about that, seeming quite frustrated. Mayes hadn’t caught the start of the conversation, but they got the impression that Stelios had been trying to shift the conversation, hurriedly changing whatever the topic had been before.

Mayes made their way back into the hall along the corridor.

  
  


Pandora was still mingling around. She went to talk to Castor, who was waiting in a seat, listening to idle conversation. Seeing her coming, he looked up and smiled, inclining his head.

“Good evening,” Pandora greeted.

“Nice to meet you, my lady.”

“So how are you enjoying the evening?”

“It’s pleasant.”

“It’s pleasant,” she agreed. “And Cassandra? A little more than pleasant, I hope?”

“She certainly is.”

“I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself. My name is Areina, and I am an aide to Cassandra. I’ll be helping her make her big decision.”

“My absolute pleasure to meet you,” he took her hand, kissing it.

“Such a gentleman,” Pandora smiled. “So, what can you offer our lovely lady?”

“I can offer her safety, and protection. Comfort, for her entire life. I know it might not be the riches of anybody else here, but…”

“It’s a big title.”

“It is.”

“And, if you don’t mind my asking, I’m not that well-versed in this kind of thing,” Pandora continued, “Any heirs that she may have, does the title get passed on? Is it voted in? Is it…?”

“Here in Erran, the title is elected, but there’s always a high chance of it passing family to family. As long as that family keeps favor, I suppose.”

“Okay. Well, there’s a few things that I’ve spoken to Cassandra about, because we all know tonight is about her and what she wants, above all things…”

“As it should be.”

“Now, one thing she would really like, is stability, in terms of her other half. And one thing she just couldn’t stand, would just absolutely break her heart, would be… if her husband were easily swayed. By other women.”

Castor laughed. “I can assure you, that would never be the case.”

“Okay, that’s good to know.”

“I wouldn’t plan on taking a mistress, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That is roundabout what I’m asking,” she admitted.

Castor laughed again. “Why would anyone want to take a mistress with a woman as beautiful as Cassandra?”

His gaze was unwavering as he spoke, and Pandora believed him entirely.

A little earlier than ten minutes later, Cassandra came back in with the child. “Run along, I’m sure it’s your bedtime…”

Pandora nodded to Castor. “Thank you for your time. I have places to be, as you can imagine.”

“Of course,” he returned. “Anything else you need from me, I’m here all night.”

“Of course, I’ll be floating around.”

Pandora went back over to Cassandra.

“Oh, please,” Cassandra sighed. “Let’s hope he goes to sleep now, and I don’t have to do that ever again.”

“What did he say about his brother?” Pandora wondered.

“He said that his brother isn’t very well.”

“Oh… That’s funny, because I spoke to his father, and apparently, his older brother is already betrothed, but…”

“That’s not what I heard from the kid.”

“The thing is, I always find in these kinds of situations, kids are usually the most honest,” Pandora mused, trying to put on the gossipy tone she had heard from the corridors of Delphos. 

Cassandra rubbed her head, looking like she didn’t understand what Pandora was getting at. “Yeah, you’re probably right. They said they travelled here for, like, well over a week, on a boat. To get here. And that his brother wasn’t well, and just couldn’t come.”

“Oh, so he  _ was _ gonna come?”

“That’s the impression I got.”

“And they dare to give you the next best thing?”

“I know. It’s offensive,” Cassandra declared, plucking a drink from a passing tray. “Honestly, they should be thrown out.”

“Incredibly offensive. I will put a big  _ no _ on that one for you. Are you doing okay, do you need anything?”

“Umm… Him,” Cassandra grinned, pointing over to Icarus.

“I will get him right away,” Pandora assured her.

She pointedly went to go and get Icarus, whispering to him as if having a brief conversation before taking him over to Cassandra.

“She really likes you,” Pandora warned, hissing through a plastered smile.

Icarus’s eyes flashed. “Oh, shit…”

“Make her not like you!”

“I can do that.”

“Mhm!”

“I told Alexis that the Icarus thing was a lie,” he confessed, speaking through a similar forced smile.

“...Okay?”

“He thinks  _ this _ is me.”

“What?”

“And I feel really bad!”

As the two of them converged, Mayes scooted by them with the jug of water, a desperate look in their eyes as they poured some water. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Icarus returned.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Someone ask her if she has a thing with Stelios,” Mayes urged.

“Who?”

Mayes nodded over to the bride-to-be. “Cassandra.”

“Oh, sure. Okay.”

“Also, keep your eyes on the drow.”

All of them could see the drow in the room at the moment.

Icarus nodded. “Okay…”

Pandora ushered Icarus over to Cassandra, Mayes giving him a pat on the back as the huddle broke.

“My lady,” Icarus greeted.

“Hi,” Cassandra beamed.

Icarus offered her an arm, and she scooted hers through his straight away.

“Cassandra, this is Antoni,” Pandora introduced the alias. “You guys have fun!”

“Antoni,” Cassandra grinned. “Walk with me?”

“I will,” Icarus agreed. “I’d be delighted.”

Cassandra waved over her shoulder to Pandora as she left, and Pandora winked back at her, trying not to freak out.

“Let’s go,” Cassandra brought Icarus outside and into the garden. “We’ve only got ten minutes…”

“It’s a beautiful night. Or, afternoon,” he amended.

“It is,” she smiled back. “You can always see the stars out here really well, so.”

“That’s pretty.”

“Yeah, when it gets dark. Um, I don’t know anything about you...”

“Not many people do,” Icarus replied. “We’ve kept kind of private over the last years.”

“I wish you wouldn’t have,” she flirted.

Icarus grinned. “You’re really nice, but I’ve got to tell you, I’ve got to warn you right straightaway, that… I’m in love with somebody else. And I’m just doing this for my family, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“...Oh,” Cassandra deflated.

“But you are incredible, and I hope that you find the person for you here.”

“Thank you for being honest,” she shrugged.

“You’re welcome.”

“Who is she?”

“Uh, just a farmhand, back home,” he covered.

“Well, I hope the two of you end up happy together. I get so sick of all these trade families, and just the same old cycle of business and trade…”

“You want adventure in your life,” Icarus smiled.

“Yeah! Yeah… And romance, nothing’s more romantic than adventure, right?”

“Yeah, I think that sounds pretty right,” Icarus returned. “I hope you end up happy with whoever you choose tonight. You got your eye on anyone?”

She giggled. “You really want to know?”

“Yeah, why not? We have ten minutes just to chat, we might as well just… chat.”

She shifted. “Well… I kind of have a thing for the poet,” she admitted.

“Really?”

“Yeah…”

“When did you guys meet?”

“Oh, a couple years ago.”

“Did you go to one of his plays? Or, poems?”

“Yeah, poetry recital. Um, but you know, he’s just a poet. It’s never gonna work…”

“Because he can’t provide?”

“Well, precisely. He’s a starving artist, what’s he gonna give me?”

“Depends what you’re looking for in a relationship,” Icarus shrugged.

She frowned. “Well it’d be nice if somebody with money could write me some poetry.”

  
  


In the meantime, Pandora looked around for Ursus. She saw him watching around the room as though looking for somebody in particular. Looking slightly annoyed, he left the room.

Looking around herself, Pandora tried to figure out who wasn’t there. It took her awhile to pick across the different suitors and heads in the room, flittering around to talk to people, until she realized Gaius wasn’t there. Kreios was still missing as well.

Noticing this, Mayes went to go look for Kreios themselves. They didn’t find him, but as they wandered through the hallways, they did hear a noise coming from the library.

Heading through the servant corridors, they listened to the wall. They heard two muffled voices, one an alluring tone they identified as Gaius, and the other a female voice.

Mayes quietly snuck their way in. They were met with the sight of Gaius flirting with one of his servant girls in the library. However, as they entered, she caught a glimpse of Mayes over his shoulder. As she startled, Gaius turned around and dead eyed them.

Mayes immediately closed the door, “Sorry, wrong door…”

They were back in the staff corridor, but they had seen what they needed to see. Mayes continued wandering through the corridors, seeing if they could catch anyone else. Looking out through a window, they glanced Kreios outside, talking to what looked to be a staff member, or some kind of foot servant Mayes hadn’t been introduced to.

Though they couldn’t hear what the pair were talking about, it didn’t seem to be a heated conversation, though a slightly annoyed one. Kreios uncliped the cloak he was wearing, giving it to the servant. Looking at the cloak, Mayes determined it was surely a cloak made of the fleece described on the piece of paper they had found earlier.

Making no attempt to hide, Mayes went out to speak with Kreios. The foot servant went off the cloak, now bundled up in that piece of fabric. Kreios stood there, enjoying the air.

“Um, my Lord? Sorry to interrupt…”

“Mayes,” he nodded.

Mayes gave a little bow. “Uh, that doesn’t happen to be golden fleece, does it?”

“...How were you able to tell?”

“I may have seen a lion with a similar coat.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The school sends us off to interesting places.”

“It’s a very special material.”

“...Yes, um… just… I don’t know if this is a warning, or something, I… may have been snooping through some of the rooms of the suitors…”

“Understandable.”

“Yes, uh… I heard a rumor that the drow from Shadebourne, uh… didn’t have any fortune. That he had promised.”

Kreios frowned thoughtfully.

“So I went in his room,” Mayes continued, “And… barely has any belongings with him, but he did have a note in his bag that just said  _ golden fleece.” _

“...Interesting.”

“So, not making any accusations, but just… Keep that in mind.”

“I would like you to keep a closer eye on him,” Kreios directed.

“I was trying to, but some of the staff did… usher me away. So I will try and keep that up.”

“That’s appreciated.”

“I appreciate that it’s probably a very rare item, that took a lot to get your hands on.”

“It is… being shut away for now,” Kreios replied. “I doubt that even if the Viscount wants to get his hands on it, that he would be able to. So I wouldn’t worry about that, but I am concerned about his presence in my household.”

“Mhm.”

“It’s not the only valuable we have lying around.”

“Sure.”

“Good work,” he nodded.

“I’ll keep my eyes peeled,” Mayes assured him, scooting back inside the house.

  
  


Icarus’s ten minutes came to an end, and he was freed from Cassandra. She came back in beaming, and Icarus gave her a kiss on the hand as he left.

Cassandra giggled. “Nice to meet you properly, Antoni.”

“And you too, Cassandra,” he returned the smile. “See you around.”

Cassandra hurried over to Pandora.

“Tell me, tell me, tell me!” Pandora sang.

“He’s lovely…”

“Mhm?”

“But he’s in love with somebody else.”

“Oh, isn’t that a bummer? In love with someone else, oh…” Pandora offered exaggerated disappointment to cover her relief.

“It’s okay, that takes one off my menu.”

“Okay… That’s fine, I will cross him off and hope that he has better luck with his beloved.”

“Yeah… Yeah. I’m gonna take the poet outside now, so…”

“Okay, do you want to go fetch him?”

“I can fetch him,” she grinned. Cassandra swaned across the room to Antheo, taking his arm and dragging him out as they disappeared outside again.

  
  


Mayes returned to the grand hall, just passing the pair as she led him off. Looking for Dion and Stelios, they found both of them in the room. Stelios was making polite conversation, looking a bit frustrated. Dion seemed to have the personality of a brick wall, staring mindlessly, and occasionally dropping into whatever conversation was happening, looking rather distracted.

  
  


Icarus made his way back over to Pandora. “I think I got her not interested.”

“Good.”

“Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. Um…”

“She knows the guy she just took out, has for years. But he told me that they only just met now.”

“Antheo?”

“Mhm. She met him at one of his plays. Said that he really likes him.”

“She really likes him. Her dad’s not impressed.”

“No, of course not, he can't provide.”

“Nope. Shame.”

Icarus shrugged. “She likes Castor though.”

“She does, she really likes Castor.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re talking too much,” Pandora warned.

Mayes did another fly-by, holding the water jug as they passed. “The guy from Elenithil’s hooking up with one of his servants.”

Dropping that bit of gossip, they walked past.

Icarus smiled to Pandora, making his exit to follow Mayes. “Let me know if Graf gets up to anything,” he whispered, quickly stepping away.

“Graf, okay,” Mayes nodded. Following the request, they tailed Graf for a bit. He was talking to Onias, who seemed to have calmed down from the excited gossip he had been spreading earlier. Onias chatted away with him, but Diedtrich didn’t seem to be doing anything noteworthy.

With a shrug, Mayes headed over to Stelios. As they refilled his cup, they whispered quietly. “You should meet her in the music room in twenty minutes.”

He turned to them, looking quite shocked before going a bit red. “...Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Stelios looked a bit emboldened. In twenty minutes time, Mayes would tail him there.

  
  


The three of them continued to mingle. Antheo came back, looking a bit flustered, but not in a good way. Slightly upset, he took a drink before leaving the room again, heading out the main doors of the hall and upstairs.

Cassandra returned, appearing unmoved. Without consulting with Pandora, she took Alexis outside.

Icarus went upstairs to the courtyard balcony while Pandora and Mayes stayed behind. The two of them heard another rumor from Onias, now getting the impression that Onias was the main rumor mill. He suggested that the servants Gaius had with him were not servants, but all previous wives. Onias went on to gossip that Voltus has had two secret children out of wedlock. It certainly sounded like he at least believed that one, and they got the impression that Onias was greatly enjoying spreading the rumors, though he wasn’t entirely making things up. At this point, he had had a couple of drinks, and it was running his mouth perhaps more than he intended to.

Catching Pandora’s eye, Mayes motioned to Onias, advising her to go speak with him.

Meanwhile, Icarus went up to the courtyard balcony. The doors weren’t locked, but they were closed, with long glass panelled windows with latches in the center that would press out. He gently slid through, getting to the edge of the balcony to lean over.

Cassandra was hanging off of Alexis’s arm,and listening to his every word. Icarus knew Alexis well, and he was acting slightly uptight to put on his best professional voice. She seemed fairly impressed the whole time, though he wasn’t really asking questions, more answering. Cassandra just seemed to want to talk at him.

But it wasn’t the Alexis that Icarus knew. He was definitely uncomfortable with the entire affair.

  
  


Pandora and Mayes saw Kreios return to the room, passing through the courtyard. Icarus saw Cassandra smile and wave to her father as Alexis gave him a polite bow of the head.

Kreios came back to the main hall, making a beeline for Alexis’s father to speak with him.

Dion was still in the room. Pandora hadn’t seen him leave at all. She caught just the slightest flicker of Dion’s eyes to Kreios’s shoulders, and he seemed to mutter something to himself before heading back to the conversation he was having. There was no movement of his hands suggesting a spell, but it was suspicious.

Alexis’s time ended, and Mayes headed to the music room. As they walked out, they noticed a glimpse of Dion heading around the top of the stairs. Just as he did, Stelios strode towards the music room in the corner, emboldened.

Faced with the choice, Mayes tried to catch Stelios’s initial reaction before tailing the drow upstairs. Mayes watched him open the door, looking around inside. “My love... ? Are you in here…?”

Stelios went inside.

Mayes hesitated a moment longer, and then went after the drow. But at the top of the stairs, he was nowhere to be seen.

  
  


In the grand hall, Pandora heard a sudden quiet compared to what there had been before, and realized that Onias had left the room. She hadn’t seen the exit, she had only noticed the quiet afterwards. Dietrich left the room soon after.

Cassandra brought Alexis back. He returned to his father’s side, completely silent. Cassandra pulled Pandora over, telling her she was very interested in him.

She took Cleo next, giving Pandora a look to convey her disinterest. Icarus saw the pair come out from above on the balcony. Immediately, he heard Cassandra quite bluntly inform her that she wasn’t interested. Cleo raised her hands, nodding. “Okay, thanks for telling me. We probably shouldn’t waste any more time out here.”

They went straight back inside.

Mayes headed to Cassandra and Kreios’s room, passing Icarus on the balcony upstairs. Mayes squinted suspiciously at Icarus’s back as the triton leaned over, but they kept going.

Heading down the corridor through the archway down to where their room was, they saw that the two large doors to Cassandra and Kreios’s rooms were ajar. They had been closed the last time Mayes had been up here.

Quietly, they moved through. They noticed immediately that Cassandra’s door was open, and her cousin Hera was inside, looking through her drawers. She didn’t say anything, and Mayes couldn’t tell what she was looking for.

Lord Kreios’s door was still closed.

Mayes put their ear to the door, but couldn’t hear anything. There was a staff door to the left of the room, also closed, and a door at the end up to the upper level, also closed.

They went in the staff door, taking something light from their serving plate. Tossing it towards Cassandra’s door, they hid in the staff passageway to see what Hera would do.

She moved to the doorway, looking out into the hall before her footsteps went back to the double doors and out of them.

Mayes entered Cassandra’s room. It was a vast bedroom, beautifully decorated with a huge bed, and a second bed made up for Hera. The drawers had been quietly closed.

Of everything in the room, it all seemed to be finery, perfume bottles, and beautiful dresses. The only thing they found with a quick search of the room was a stack of handwritten poetry on the desk from Antheo. They seemed to be letters dated across time in the last two years.

Quietly leaving, Mayes shut the double doors behind them.

  
  


Cassandra swapped Cleo for Idaeus. Dietrick and Onias still had yet to return. Icarus watched from the balcony, and she chatted with Idaeus, but didn’t seem particularly interested.

Inside the grand hall, Pandora overheard Stelios and Voltus making a bet. Voltus bet that he would come closer to winning Cassandra’s hand than Stelios would, for quite a significant chunk of money. Stelios considered the bargain, and couldn’t resist.

Icarus headed back in from the balcony. As he came back down the stairs, heading to the grand hall, he saw the doors were now simply left open. To his left, the door to the library was once again askew. Taking a detour, he decided to take a peek.

Creeping up to the door, he pressed his face to the crack. There were Dietrich and Onias, hooking up in the library, pressed against the ladder that went up the bookshelves.

Icarus closed the door very quietly, giving them their privacy before heading back to the grand hall.

  
  


Mayes began to patrol the corridors, set on catching the drow. They only had one hour until they needed to make another appearance with the rest of the staff. They decided to give it twenty minutes.

  
  


In that time, Pandora continued going up to Cassandra between her meetings, taking notes. “I’m just going to powder my nose while you go out to do the next one, but I’ll be right back with you.”

“Alright,” Cassandra smiled. “Take your time!”

Pandora returned to her group’s shared room to write everything onto their secret paper. As she left, Icarus caught her leaving. As the two of them met at the top of the stairs, Mayes hurried over. The corridors were deserted but for the three of them.

“We don’t have much time,” Pandora urged.

“Come on,” Icarus gestured them all into their room, closing the door.

Mayes followed, resolving to stay for just a bit before returning to patrol.

The three of them converged in the bedroom.

“Okay, so Diedritch and Onias are… getting pretty personal in the library,” Icarus began.

“Oh…” the other two nodded.

“I don’t think either of them are interested in what’s going on.”

“Okay,” Pandora nodded.

“I have a suspicion that Stelios is more interested in Hera, potentially?” Mayes guessed. “He has a necklace in his room addressed to someone that wasn’t presented, and I’ve seen her snooping around in Cassandra’s room. It could just be completely baseless conjecture, but could also be something…”

Pandora scanned her notes. “There’s conflicting information about, um, Lucanus? The twelve year old boy?”

“Right?” Mayes prompted.

“He has an older brother who his father says is already betrothed, but his son says he’s ill, so… There’s lies going on there.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of lies going around here,” Icarus frowned.

“I found letters from the poet in Cassandra’s bedroom,” Mayes added.

“She likes him a lot,” Pandora nodded. “But I don’t know if it’ll ever work out for them.”

“That makes sense,” Icarus thought. “She met him years ago, and…”

“Dad’s not impressed.”

“The drow is really suspicious,” Mayes declared. “I think he’s after a family heirloom.”

“You think so?”

“So he claims to be from some sort of nobility. He’s a knight, right?”

“Yeah, but there’s been rumors of debt flying around,” Icarus countered.

“Yeah, there’s like nothing in his room, apart from a small bag with a note inside with a description of a golden fleece.”

“Golden fleece?” Pandora echoed. “Like the cloak that Kreios was wearing?”

“I found him later and I discussed it with him. He was very appreciative.”

“Okay…”

“But the fleece is under guard at the moment, so…”

“Okay, great,” Icarus nodded.

“But he keeps wandering around the corridors, and I can never find him,” Mayes grumbled.

Pandora shook her head. “He’s been in the grand hall the whole time.”

“I have seen him in the corridors,” Mayes insisted.

“Okay, well… Are we saying there’s two of him?”

“We’ll keep an eye out for it,” Icarus assured her. He put his arms around their shoulders with a sigh. “Can I just say, I really miss you guys?”

“I really miss you guys too,” Pandora moaned. “This is so hard!”

Mayes eyed Icarus. “What did you learn on the balcony?”

“I was just getting her opinion on what was going on,” he covered.

“Okay… Kind of saw you leaning over the edge.”

“Yeah, I was listening in on some of her meetings.”

“Smart.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Pandora flipped through her notes. “I mean, there’s a lot of other stuff I’ve been noticing, but I don’t know if it’s really relevant. Like, there’s someone who’s a gambler, and someone who’s been placing a bet with him for a lot of money, like… It’s not stuff that’s particularly pressing to us right now.”

“There’s some strange stuff going on here,” Mayes frowned, “With some of these people… I um, I’m gonna head back out. I just… I wanna catch this guy. While he’s in the act.”

“Yeah!” Icarus encouraged.

“Well, I can go down and make doubly certain that he’s in the room,” Pandora offered.

“If it’s some kind of magic, I don’t think that matters,” Mayes countered.

“We need to know how he’s doing it. I can keep a closer eye on him and see if he’s communicating? Because I’m sure… So, like, I didn’t really understand this at the time, but when Kreios came back in not wearing the fleece, Dion sort of… he was in conversation with someone, but then he muttered to himself? Which is kind of weird, like, just to talk to yourself? Especially if you’ve got someone in front of you?”

“Okay,” Icarus agreed. “Well, yeah. If you want to go back in and keep an eye on him, I can help you on this floor,” he nodded to Mayes.

“Yes,” Mayes agreed. “I mean, hey, even if you maybe go and distract the version of him that’s in the room, maybe if it’s something linked with him…”

“Yeah, I haven’t gone to speak to him yet, so I can go and distract him for awhile? And try to get a bead on him, see if he’s doing anything weird… Like, magically.”

“Okay,” Icarus sighed. “And break.”

“Can we have a hug first?” Pandora pleaded.

“Yes we can!”

The three of them leaned in. The second task was quite draining for Pandora, but they were making it through.

As they separated, Mayes put out a hand. “Go team.”

Icarus added his own hand. “Go team.”

“Go team,” Pandora agreed, finishing the pile.

They all raised their hands into the air.

“Break,” Icarus repeated, grinning.

The three of them left the room with staggered exits, though the corridors still seemed completely abandoned. They were still looking for the drow, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  
  


Pandora returned to the great hall in time for Cassandra to return with Idaeus. She informed Pandora that she found him boring, though he seemed to be smitten with her. He had confessed he had made some armour for her father awhile ago, and he saw her there, becoming completely entranced by her.

She wasn’t interested.

“That’s fine,” Pandora assured her. “Before you go out again, can I ask, what happened with Antheo? He came in looking really disheveled and dejected…”

Cassandra pursued her lips. “...He asked me to elope.”

Pandora gasped. “No…”

“And I told him that’s not what this event was about. He said that we should be together, and I told him… I’m just not that into him? You know, I’m into him, but not  _ that _ into him, not run away from your family and live as a poet’s wife…”

“No, it’s not  _ serious _ serious,” Pandora nodded. “Not run away to the hills… He was no fun.”

“Precisely! A girl has got to have a bit of fun…”

“Mhm… Okay, who do you want to see next?”

“I’ve been looking for Onias, but I can’t find him,” she frowned.

“Onias…” Pandora nodded, recalling what Icarus had passed to her. “Um… Tell you what, I’ll go see if I can find him. Do you want to speak to…”

“I’ll take the drow,” she shrugged.

“Tell you what,” Pandora countered, flipping through her notes for a distraction. “Why not speak to Voltus?”

“I spoke to him first,” Cassandra frowned. “You want me to see him again? You think he’s a good candidate?”

Pandora quickly scanned her notes again, realizing her mistake. “Um… No, I’m looking at the wrong name on my notes, that’s why… Um… Have you spoken with Stelios yet?”

“No,” Cassandra realized. “You know what, I’ll take him.”

“Yeah. I’m thinking he’s like a five or a six, so should we just get him out of the way?”

“You’re right,” she grinned, moving into the crowd. “Stelios?”

Cassandra led Stelios away.

Pandora began to search for Dion. He was there in the room, standing out the outside of people’s conversations, and drifting between the chatter stone-faced. He had a glass of wine in his hand that had barely been sipped.

She went over to engage him in trivial conversation, keeping him talking for a bit. He did talk, but he was incredibly bland. It was almost painful to hold a small talk conversation with him, but she managed to get him to talk about Shadebourne and being a knight. Pandora found herself wanting to sleep listening to his voice.

She couldn’t tell if he was behaving in such a dull way on purpose, but while he talked, his eyes kept sliding to the door and Kreios. He was keeping a close eye on everyone’s whereabouts, and she got the impression he was hyper-aware of all the guests, but she didn’t feel anything magical from him.

  
  


Icarus returned downstairs, wandering around the lower level, past the Pelor shrine and the art gallery. On the floor, outside the shrine, he noticed a dirty scuff mark that seemed to be from an animal footprint. Looking inside the shrine, there was nobody. The scuff was too smeared to make out, but it was clearly the pad of a foot rather than the heel of a shoe, and quite large.

With nothing else to find on that end, he wandered to the other side. The art gallery connected to the reception room where they had first met Kreios. It was another room of fine art and statues, and likely where the golden shield would be hung later. There was a massive landscape painting of a ram with an incredible cream fleece that looked just like the fleecemane lion he had seen before. The ram looked to have stars in its eyes, and in the portrait, there was a man who looked like a relative of Kreios shearing it. The background landscape was filled with snow crested mountains.

“Hm. That’s not from around here…” Icarus mused.

He continued his wander through. Passing the washroom, he ran straight into Onias as he came out of it, who was in the middle of putting himself back together.

“Oh, hey!”

“Hi…” Onias shifted.

“How are you doing?”

“Good…”

“I don't think we’ve had a chance to talk properly.”

“Uh, no.”

“I was heading back to the grand hall?”

“Sure, why not,” Onias nodded. His eyes flickered over his shoulder at the washroom, and then he carried on down the hall. “No, I don’t think we really had a chance at all. And I don’t know you at all…”

“No,” Icarus chuckled.

“And I need to make sure if you’re suitable for Cassandra or not.”

Icarus shook his head. “I… I already think I’m off that list, don’t worry.”

“Okay, good. That’s another one to not think about. I’ve known her since I was seven years old, and she is… You know, she’s not a working girl, but she’s got adventure in her heart. She doesn’t want to be stuck behind, as somebody’s housewife, as somebody’s… you know,  _ come-home-to-woman, _ after they’ve worked all day…”

“No, that’s what she said. She wants adventure, and the romance of adventure.”

Onias chuckled. “That sounds like Cassie. So yeah, I’ve just been trying to weed out all of the bad apples…”

“I can help with that.”

Onias raised a brow, offering his arm. “Well then. Shall we?”

“Sure,” Icarus grinned, taking it.

Onias led him back into the great hall, and started going off on all the gossip. He informed Icarus that there was a rumor that Antheo married a goat, but was completely made up, as he had overheard Stelios making it up in the first place. Onias told him that Idaeus was widowed, and if you listened in on the right conversations, you might hear people saying that he murdered his previous wife, but that was completely untrue. Onias continued to spill that Cleo was a serial suitor, who had a tendency to get engaged to someone and then disappear. This would typically happen in scenarios where the other person was about to get engaged to someone who wasn’t very good for them, so Cleo would show up, win them over, get the other guy out of the running, and then disappear.

The gossip continued to pour. Onias mentioned the rumor going around that Castor stole Voltus’s fiancée, and the counter rumor that Voltus had stolen Onias’s own fiancée. Neither of them were true. Onias didn’t understand where the rumors were coming from, but he would like to know. Onias had never had a fiancée, but Castor did once date his cousin.

Onias went on to claim that the goblin’s family had absolutely nothing, and repeated the rumor that Gaius’s servants were all previous wives. In return, Icarus relayed that he knew Gaius had been flirting with one of them in the library.

Onias nodded. “That doesn’t sound very much like a previous wife than, does it?”

“No.”

Onias continued to inform him that he didn’t know anything about Ursus at all, which was one of the strangest things. Somebody suggested that he had a fake title deed, but nobody had been able to back it up with any evidence, and he didn’t know anything else about him.

Icarus looked around, spotting Ursus. He glanced down, but Ursus was wearing shoes. They were fairly big shoes, considering how tall he was. He was making friendly conversation, though people were a little bit intimidated by him.

Onias confirmed that Voltus did have two secret children out of wedlock, but he was a very good dad to them, though trying to keep the secret in order to protect his reputation. Continuing on, Onias gossiped that the drow and the royalty from Elenithil were formally very close families. Then, something had happened regarding an event invitation where one didn’t come, and now they didn’t speak to each other.

Onias sort of glossed over Dietrich, singling out Alexis instead. He claimed that Alexis’s older brother was incarcerated, and then drifted on as if he hadn’t said anything of importance.

Icarus did his best to hold in his reaction, looking over to where Alexis was standing with wide eyes.

“And by the way,” Onias concluded, “Someone has been spreading a rumor about me, that my family was involved in slavery? But I just need you to know that, we work furiously to prevent slavery, so… If you hear that from anyone else in the night, please do not let it sully my name.”

“I won’t, don’t worry about it,” Icarus assured him. “There’s a lot of rumors going on here…”

“I think that’s everything I can possibly spread to you,” Onias grinned.

“That’s a lot, thank you,” Icarus chuckled.

“Anyway, so I’m thinking Castor, because there’s no rumors here that make him an awful person, so…”

“And he’s handsome.”

“He is, isn’t he?” Onias grinned.

“Yeah.”

There was a bit of a pause as Onias brushed away his hair. “Anyway, I should see to it that we get the good seats at the banquet…”

“Sure.”

“Nice speaking to you.”

“You too. See you around,” Icarus nodded.

Sliding his arm out of Icarus’s, Onias disappeared off to the other side of the room, instantly engaging in more gossip.

  
  


Mayes continued to patrol for the drow, spending another twenty minutes with no luck. Instead, they found Ursus, listening in on his conversations. They noticed he was quite jittery, and growing increasingly so through the night.

Mayes passed by with a goblet of wine. “To ease your nerves.”

“Thank you,” he nodded. “Much appreciated.”

He drank it fairly quickly.

“Let me know if you need anything else,” Mayes offered.

“I appreciate that.”

“I don’t like big crowds like this either.”

“No, definitely not…”

  
  


Cassandra cycled through the last handful of suitors, though she wasn’t particularly interested in any of them. As 8:00pm rolled around, dinner was taken in the banqueting hall. They were led through the room, Pandora sitting with Onias, Cassandra, and Hera. Through the dinner, Hera spoke about how attractive Stelios was, as if encouraging Cassandra, but she brushed it off. Onias made more jokes about Antheo and the goat he was supposedly married to, though Cassandra was quite irked by it. She continued to express her interest in Castor and Alexis.

  
  


Icarus found himself seated with Voltus, Castor, and Alexis. Alexis’s dad was seated with Kreios, Gaius, the goblin, and Stelios. While they sat, Castor brought up that he was concerned over Ursus’s presence.

“Why do you say that?” Icarus probed.

“Nobody knows who he is,” he frowned.

“Could say the same about me,” Icarus smiled.

“That’s true, but… I don’t know, you seem to be met with some familiarity from the Lord.”

Icarus kept silent.

“...I know just that some people try and stir trouble at these sort of things,” he continued. “And… Wouldn’t want any trouble to stir.”

“No,” Icarus agreed. “It’d be quite ballsy for anyone trying to stir trouble with somebody like you around.”

Castor grinned. “Yeah, well, I can’t always be on my guard…”

Castor seemed quite tired by the festivities, but genuine. Formal events with the upper class weren’t his thing, and he didn’t look like the kind of man who came from this place in society. He was wearing out through the night having to continue this, but to be fair, the party had been going for over three hours by now.

Through the meal, Voltus grew a bit snappy with Alexis after he made some kind of comment. Voltus returned fire claiming that he had heard from Tythe that his brother was incarcerated.

Alexis glowered, getting very mad.

“I don’t think that’s dinner table appropriate conversation,” Icarus interjected, fixing Voltus with a cold stare. “Do you? Sir?”

Voltus leaned back. “Wow… Okay.”

Alexis gave Icarus a thankful look.

Icarus nudged his leg with his own under the table. Alexis rested his leg against the triton’s for comfort, and Icarus let him.

  
  


Mayes listened to the other tables, though it was mostly inane gossip. Titus, the small boy, was still up. He told Cleo and Antheo that his older brother was supposed to come, but was quickly hushed up by his father. Dion, the drow, sat with Ursus and Dietrich. Mayes kept near that table as Dion went on about his inheritance, claiming it was quite large. He looked pretty certain of it, but Mayes noticed the tick in his mouth as he talked. He was presenting carefully, but watching him, Mayes got the impression that he was watching everyone else carefully as well, listening in.

Completely oblivious to that, Idaeus talked about how his own inheritance came from his late wife, while Ursus fidgeted, not making any conversation at all. Dietrich was trying to catch Onias’s eye across the room for a large portion of the night.

The last table was the Lord himself, Gaius, Alexis’s father, and Stelios. Kreios was trying to persuade Gaius into a trade deal, while Alexis’s father carefully watched Castor and Icarus from the other side of the room, not engaging in conversation. Stelios was staring at Hera across the hall, though from how close she was sitting to Cassandra, it could easily be mistaken for staring at her instead. Gaius was, again, flanked by his female servants.

Dinner was taken at the five small tables, laying down on kline couches, reclining, with servants mostly standing around the walls, topping off drinks, and clearing plates. There were two elven musicians sitting in a far corner of the dining hall, playing music on a lute and a lyre.

Seven courses were served throughout the night. Amongst the delicacies were appetizers of oysters, roasted thrushes, asparagus, mussels, deer, boar, ribs, and pies. There was a boar’s head, fish pies, boiled ducks and pears, roasted chicken and pastries, and various wines. As Pandora and Icarus tucked in, they glanced Mayes at the side looking longingly over at the feast.

  
  


Dinner came to an end, and afterwards, the event moved back to the grand hall. The seats had all been cleared to make room for dancing and socializing. The evening was starting to wind down, with more people moving off into small groups. Several of the suitors were now flocked around Cassandra. With no further duties, she was trapped, but seemed to be lavishing the attention even from the men she wasn’t interested in.

Pandora hung near Cassandra, doting on her every need, and getting her drinks. Cassandra enthusiastically introduced her to everyone, “This is my advisor! She’s helping me choose between you!”

At one point, Alexis found Icarus again, coming over to him and looking at the floor. “Can I have another word with you?”

Icarus’s eyes flicked to him, and then to the ground. “Of course.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

Alexis led him out of the room again, finding a quiet spot in the corridor. He let out a long breath, crossing his arms.

Icarus looked him up and down. “You okay?”

“...Can you help me?”

“With what?”

Alexis frowned. “My father sat with the Lord, over dinner. And… apparently, Kreios is very interested in this pairing.”

Icarus gave him a sympathetic look. “You're really not, huh?”

“I don’t wanna marry her. But I… I can’t do that, I can’t just tell my father I don’t want to, that’s…”

Icarus nodded, giving him a small smile. “Leave it with me.”

“Thanks, Antoni. I appreciate that.”

“...No worries.”

Alexis sighed again. “Okay…”

“Take a breath.”

He did. “I should be better at this stuff.”

“Why? It’s shit,” Icarus grinned.

“I’ve spent my whole life trying to learn how to do this stuff. But I’m sure you know all about that, so… Thank you.”

“No worries.”

“...And, no hard feelings,” Alexis offered. “Sorry, I was just a bit stressed earlier.”

“I know.”

Alexis went back inside.

  
  


After a moment, Icarus went over to pull Kreios away.

“Ah, Nowak!” Kreios grinned. He waved to the others, “I’ll see you guys…” and took Icarus out of the room.

“Busy night,” Icarus commented.

“It is indeed.”

“Two things,” Icarus began. “First of all, do you have any family pets?”

Kreios frowned. “...No?”

“There is a large paw print outside of the Temple of Pelor that you have here.”

“Okay?”

“So…”

“It's concerning…”

“Very concerning,” Icarus agreed.

He nodded. “Okay… Good to know.” He looked alarmed, but mostly confused. “Is there something else?”

“Secondly, regarding the matchup of your daughter?”

“Mhm?”

“From what I’ve gathered, the only real person that would be a good match for her sake and for yours would be Castor.”

He nodded. “That’s good to know. I mean, you have all night to think on it, and into tomorrow…”

“Yeah, of course, but… Trust me, there’s been a lot of information going around,” he chuckled.

“Good. Well, I look forward to hearing some of it back. I appreciate your input.”

“Not a problem. Enjoy the rest of your night, and let us know if you need anything.”

“You too. The three of you have been doing well.”

“Thank you.”

Icarus headed upstairs, writing everything down on the notes in their room.

  
  


Mayes noticed Stelios leave the room, followed shortly by Hera. Dion left after, and Mayes followed him. Pandora caught a glimpse of Mayes as they followed him, filled with determination. Pandora made another powder room excuse to Cassandra, who dismissively waved her off. Cassandra had had a few too many drinks by now, and was loving all the attention from the room.

Pandora surreptitiously, casually followed Mayes. She saw Dion heading down the hall, with Mayes right behind, heading through the archways and to the left. They went towards the music room before hanging a left, directly to Kreios’s door.

Reaching the office door, Dion heard the slight squeak of a shoe. Stopping, he glanced over his shoulder, turning to see Mayes.

“I seem to have lost my way,” Dion spoke. “Which way was it to the washrooms?”

Mayes pointed off. “Opposite direction.”

Dion sighed. “Thank you.”

He turned and walked straight back past Mayes. He was absolutely lying.

  
  


Upstairs, Icarus returned to the room, writing down all of his notes. As he came back out, he noticed the double doors to Kreios’s bedroom were open, though they had been closed before. Going to take a look, he didn’t see anyone in the corridor beyond, but he noticed that the balcony doors to the upper level down at the end were slightly open. Meandering down to the end, poking his head around the door, he immediately saw Dion at the balcony windows to Kreios’s bedroom.

Icarus waited a moment to watch him. He was fiddling with something under his jacket, but Icarus couldn’t make out what it was.

  
  


Downstairs, Dion headed towards the washrooms before turning the corridor to the art gallery. Mayes pursued. Making their way over, they saw Dion stride down to the exit to the colonnade.

Mayes put a finger on their lips, signalling to Pandora as they followed. Dion went outside, hanging a left around the side of the building. He glanced up to the upper colonnade as he went.

As Pandora and Mayes came outside, they looked up as well. There was Dion, standing on the balcony outside Kreios’s room.

They looked back down the path in front of them. There was Dion again, standing outside near them and heading to climb the outer staircase.

They pursued. Upstairs, Icarus watched his Dion slide some kind of tool into the window latch to get it open.

Icarus stepped out, catching his eye. “Stop.”

The Dion turned to look at him, freezing under the magical command.

Mayes and Pandora pursued their Dion to the top of the stairs. As they did, they saw him hurriedly move to the double doors towards Kreios’s room. The pair turned the corner just in time to see Icarus standing on the balcony, looking over at someone else.

Their Dion stopped, looked around, and realized he couldn’t get to the balcony. He went for a staff door instead, quickly moving a hand on the wall to find one. He went to open the staff door between Cassandra and Kreios’s rooms, but he hadn’t seen Mayes and Pandora yet.

Pandora took out her pendulum, casting a spell of her own. Dion dropped to his knees in sleep, hands still on the wall as he fell to the marble floor.

Outside, Icarus was still staring at the other one. As that Dion shook himself from the command, Icarus noticed the others taking care of the second drow. Icarus ran forwards, apprehending his Dion outside. Throwing his arms around him, Icarus pulled him away from the window as the drow dropped a set of thieves’ tools.

Glancing in the window, Icarus could see a large glass case with the fleece cloak inside.

Mayes linked their arms around the sleeping drow. Footsteps came from behind them, and Pandora swirled around. She was met face to face with Castor.

“What’s going on?” Castor pressed.

“Nothing to worry about,” Pandora tried.

“...Um, I think there is something to worry about,” he stepped past, looking down the hall at the unconscious Dion.

“Don’t worry, we have this all under control,” Pandora assured him.

“Just apprehending someone who might have been a harm to the event tonight,” Mayes explained.

“Where’s the other one?” Castor pressed.

Mayes glanced over, intrigued by the information in the admission. “I think our friend’s got it handled…”

“Okay…”

“What do you know about this?”

“Very little. I’ve just been keeping an eye on them all night.”

“Yeah. It’s weird.”

Castor frowned. “Okay, well, um… Do you want to take them both to Kreios?”

“I think that’s probably a good idea,” Pandora agreed.

“Yeah,” Mayes nodded.

“I think I’m gonna check out the area,” Castor decided. “See if there’s anyone else around.”

Pandora gave Mayes a look, and then glanced back to Castor. “I’ll come with you.”

“Okay, good,” he nodded. “Thank you.”

Mayes looked over at Icarus, giving him a wave.

The concious drow wasn’t fighting back, having seen the other asleep. He simply stood in Icarus’s hold. “Mayes, have you got anything to secure this one?” Icarus asked.

Mayes looked down at their bare pockets. “No, I’m staff.”

“Well I’m a suitor in a toga,” Icarus countered.

“Here,” Castor took off his belt, throwing it to Icarus.

Icarus spent some time restraining the conscious drow, who was completely silent.

“Let’s take him down to the reception room,” Mayes suggested. “And go get… yeah.”

“Is it worth frog-marching them through?” Icarus wondered. “Or just leaving them here, and getting Kreios to come up? Don't want to cause a commotion going down there…”

“That’s what I mean, take them to the reception room. It’s not part of the party.”

“Sure.”

“And it’s close to where the stairs are.”

“Yeah.”

They led the pair of drow back around the outside stairs, avoiding the guests, and navigating around the lower colonnade and back into the reception room. Mayes laid the sleeping one down on one of the kline couches. Icarus sat the other one, who was looking at him with a deadly stare.

“You stand guard, I’ll go get Kreios?” Mayes suggested.

“Can do,” Icarus grinned.

Mayes returned to the grand hall, alerting Kreios and beckoning him out. He followed Mayes to the reception room.

  
  


Upstairs, Castor profusely apologized to Pandora that this had happened, still with no idea of her true identity.

“Well, it’s all very exciting, isn’t it?” Pandora smiled.

“Yeah, well I just don’t want Cassandra getting in any kind of trouble,” he worried.

“Not at all. Let’s keep this from her.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Probably should.” He checked the corridors, and sighed. “Okay, I think we might be good.”

“Let’s head down,” Pandora agreed.

Castor led her downstairs.

  
  


Kreios stepped into the reception room, looking over the two drow. “What is the meaning of this?”

“That’s a good question,” Mayes replied. “We’d like to know too.”

“Why are there two of him?”

“They were trying to break into your room,” Icarus explained.

Kreios tilted his head. “Really… Well? Are you going to talk?”

The conscious drow sat silently.

“You’re after the fleece, right?” Mayes prompted.

The drow stared at him.

“You’re not the only one that can go around sneaking in rooms,” Mayes needled. “Not very much luggage for a knight from Shadebourne…”

“Or two of you,” Icarus added.

“Or two of you,” Mayes echoed. “For someone who claims to have so many riches.”

Looking between the two of them, they were clearly identical twins. The conscious drow frowned, and then spoke. “Is my brother going to be okay?”

Icarus shrugged. “I don’t know.”

The drow looked Kreios in the eye. “You don’t deserve to have that thing.”

Icarus sent out a wave of his magic. It washed out over the room, settling into everyone but Icarus himself, urging them all to be truthful. The drow gulped a bit as the spell settled.

As Pandora and Castor entered the room, they entered the magic as well, the same spell hitting them both.

Kreios looked at the drow. “What would you know about it?”

The drow scoffed. “I know exactly what that thing does. I know you use it to manipulate people out of their money.”

Icarus looked over to Kreios. “Is this true?”

“Yes,” Kreios replied easily, and then shook his head, surprised by the effects of the spell. “But… it’s not quite that simple. It’s… arcane- ” he closed his mouth again, trying to stop the confessions. “I might as well tell you now… It comes with a natural enchantment. Allows me to be persuasive. Helps good business, but there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Well it’s certainly shady,” Pandora countered. As she spoke, she realized her false accent had completely dropped away. She blinked rapidly, hushing herself.

“Shady,” Kreios shrugged. “Call it what you will. All business is shady one way or another.”

Icarus turned to interrogate the drow. “What do you want with it?”

“Our money back,” the drow replied.

“And what’s your name?”

“Dias.”

Icarus nodded. “What do you mean, your money back?”

Dias directed his answer at the Lord instead. “You might not know who we are, Lord Kreios, but your business reaped ours. Took everything our family had.”

“Do tell,” Mayes probed.

“Our father’s generation and yours… Hideous fleece. Made a trade bargain. Plundered him for all the money that he had. Now we just want to get back what’s ours.”

“It’s just business,” Kreios frowned. “It’s ridiculous. Who cares what happened a generation ago, it doesn't matter anyway. The fact is, you’re not here to marry my daughter, and even if you were, you wouldn’t be. I should have you locked up for this.”

“Technically, nothing was done,” Icarus mediated.

He looked to Pandora for help, but she shook her head, pointing to her mouth and glancing at Castos.

“No harm, no foul,” Icarus continued.

“I mean,” Mayes frowned, “They are very much here under false pretense, though…”

“True…”

“It’s kind of a B&E without the success.”

“Just a B,” Icarus grinned.

Castor shrugged. “Technically, they didn’t break anything either.”

“Just an &,” Mayes declared.

“Perhaps best just sent away, my Lord,” Castor suggested. “And a word against their reputation. And perhaps best for everybody here if you… don’t continue to use the cloak?”

“I think that sounds agreeable,” Icarus nodded.

Kreios looked very annoyed. “It’s mine. It’s my family heirloom.”

“You can see what it does to other people, though. To their families.”

“It’s like using loaded dice when you gamble,” Pandora agreed.

Kreios scoffed. “I wouldn’t say it’s quite that…”

“Gives you an edge. Like a gladiator on performance enhancing potions.”

“Well, you’re one to say magic gives you an edge,” Kreios chuckled. “Is that not exactly what you’re doing here?”

“I’m not using it to get ahead,” she returned.

Castor looked to the Lord. “Well, Kreios? Are you gonna hand it over? What are you gonna do with it? That thing should be in a museum, it shouldn’t be in someone’s personal collection.”

Kreios frowned, but relented. “Fine. The cloak doesn’t get used. But it doesn’t leave my possession. As for these two… they’re lucky I’m letting them walk away from here.”

Pandora looked around the room. “If this is agreeable for everyone?”

“Yeah,” Mayes confirmed. “No blood has to be shed tonight.”

The drow leaned back defiantly. “Pay us to go quietly.”

Kreios looked over. “Why should I? You tried to steal from me. You came into my home. I let you get close to my daughter, I don’t even know which one of you.”

“There will be no bad blood, if you just gave us our money back,” the drow countered.

Kreios shook his head. “You know what? Fine. Take some money, get the hell out of here, and never, ever mention this again. Am I understood?”

The drow looked a bit alarmed that Kreios even came to that conclusion. “Understood.”

Icarus nodded his approval. “I think that’s a very honorable thing to do.”

“Thank you,” Kreios replied.

“I’m glad that we could all be in agreement here,” Pandora followed.

Kreios gave the drow a pouch of gold, and asked the trio to lift the spell on the sleeping one. Pandora slapped the drow’s face, waking him. The drow startled awake with a snort, and then a shout as he realized his surroundings, Icarus’s previous spell settling in on him.

His brother explained the situation in truth as Kreios gave the pouch of money over.

“I will drag the two of them out to the path,” Castor declared. “And close the gates behind them. Why don’t the four of you return to the party and just… Try and let this blow over.”

“Sure,” Icarus smiled. “I can join you, since there’s two of them, so.”

Castor shook his head. “Look, just… we don’t want people thinking there’s anything going on…”

“Of course.”

“I’ve got him. I’ve dealt with bigger.”

“Okay…” Icarus gave Mayes a look, silently asking them to tail Castor as he left.

Mayes gave a small shrug, gesturing to the room to remind Icarus that Castor was still under his spell, and had to be telling the truth.

“I’ve got this, I’ll be right back,” Castor assured them. “I just don’t want Cassandra thinking anything’s wrong, with the three of you gone, and me, and him…”

“Of course, of course,” Icarus relented. “Okay.”

Castor sighed. “Okay.”

“Thank you.”

“Appreciate it,” Mayes nodded.

“And you,” he returned. “I appreciate your help…” he looked between the three of them, “Even if I am suspicious that you’re not who you say you are.”

“I don’t suppose that matters anymore,” Pandora shrugged.

“I guess not. I’m not gonna hold it against you,” he smiled. “Go on, go on.” He hoisted the two drow up, grabbing them by the backs of their matching jackets. With a half salute, he dragged the pair out.

Kreios rubbed his head. “That could have gone worse.”

“It really could,” Pandora frowned.

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed.

Icarus gave him a smile. “Exactly.”

“He’s a good man,” Pandora gently pressed.

“He is,” Kreios mused.

“He’s a very good man,” Mayes nodded.

“We should return. To Cassandra.”

“Of course.”

“Back to your posts, everyone. We still have something to sort out here, even though I’m sure we’re all clear on the result.”

Pandora nodded, and then turned to the triton. “Icarus, can you please drop this spell?”

Icarus snapped his fingers, and everyone took a deep breath. The spell had been constricting their chests, forcing out the truth, but now it was gone.

  
  


They headed back into the party. It was beginning to wind down. Some people were starting to split off, retiring to their rooms. Onias and Dietrich disappeared off to one of the rooms together, while Hera and Stelios still hadn’t returned from when they had last gone off.

Quite a few of the suitors were still mingling around as Cassandra danced with some of them, while other suitors glowered in the corners. Ursus had gone back to his room.

Lord Kreios went over to some of the men, picking up the conversation and getting the energy back up. He invited a few of them to return to the retiring room to smoke a pipe with him, offering the invitation to Icarus as well. Icarus accepted, heading over to join the rest of the men.

Kreios came gently over to Mayes. “You’re dismissed for the night.”

Mayes sighed in relief, and went quickly to raid the kitchen for leftovers.

Kreios moved to Pandora next. He thanked her for her assistance, and told Cassandra it was time for her to stop drinking, get to bed, and get some beauty sleep. Everyone began to divert as the evening started to wind down.

  
  


And then there was a deathly scream from one of the staff members as a body was thrown over the courtyard balcony. The staff member stood there, staring down at it. From where the trio of students had come out into the hallway, they saw a dark, animalistic figure on the courtyard balcony, scrambling towards the wall and up to the roof.

They looked down out the door into the courtyard at Castor’s body.

  
  



	15. Rare Exports, Episode Fifteen

The trio stood at the bottom of the staircase, looking out the windows to either side where the staff stood screaming in the garden around the lifeless shape of the Armiger.

Icarus ran out to the courtyard. Castor’s body lay before him, looking as though it had been ravaged by something animal. Scratches were torn across his chest, his armour ripped apart, blood across his face.

Looking up to the roof, Icarus could see the shape moving quickly across the tiles. Casting out his magic, a wall of water erupted from underneath him as his feet began to glide along the surface of the wave. Running to the rooftop, he jumped, hoping to catch the edge and pursue the creature. As he launched himself upwards, his hands slammed down to find the tiles loose. Icarus slid off the edge of the roof, falling to the ground.

As he fell, he redirected the flow of water to catch himself, the wave lowering him safely to the ground. The rest of the water went shooting after the creature, but it flew past, knocking some more tiles loose as the dark shape seemed to go from four legs to two again. Standing up, humanoid, it disappeared off the back of the roof.

Pandora looked around frantically. “Can we get anyone after it?”

Mayes looked up to the roof, shaking their head. “I… I don’t know if that’s possible right now.”

Krieos came out into the courtyard, looking down at Castor’s body. “...What happened?”

“Some sort of creature.” Mayes looked to the others, “I think… I think it’s the same thing we might have seen before...”

Krieos hardened. “Everybody to your rooms!”

“Wait, wait!” Pandora urged. “Is there anyone who isn’t here, first of all?”

“There were plenty of people who weren’t here.”

“But just to keep account of who isn’t? And who is?”

“...Fine.”

“It would make more sense for us to gather in the hall,” Icarus advised. “Rather than separately.”

“Might get some information,” Mayes nodded.

Krieos turned to the staff and Greta beside him, instructing that everyone be collected from around the villa and returned to the great hall before gesturing for the trio to head inside.

Icarus started narrowing down the suspects. He had been in the retiring room with Alexis and his father, the child’s father, Cleo, Idaeus, the Vicount and his female servants, and Krieos. As the trio came back inside, Icarus watched that group file out and back into the grand hall.

Slowly, others returned from around the house. Voltus, Stelios, Antheo, Onias, Tythe, Lorzize, Ursus, and Dietrich gathered in. The drow had already been sent away.

Krieos instructed his head butler to go and contact the city guard. As everyone crowded into the great hall, they pulled out seats and sat down again, many looking confused.

Krieos came to the front. “The Armiger has been murdered.”

Silence fell across the room, with hushed whispers between people, the tension in the air rising immediately.

“First of all, we’re going to need to know where everybody was in the last half hour. If anybody has seen anything.” He nodded to the trio, “You three were with me. If you would help me collect statements?”

Pandora, Icarus, and Mayes nodded their heads.

“As for everybody else, sit tight in here,” Krieos continued. “The city guard have been called, and I’m sure they will pursue a full investigation once they get here.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Icarus agreed.

“Thank you.”

With that, Krieos went over to Cassandra, who was standing with her cousin to one side of the room in shock.

Mayes looked over at the other two. “So… Should we just start going through everyone? Just questioning people?”

Icarus pointed out the group that had been with him in the retiring room. “Those were all with me at the time it happened, so…”

“So they have alibis.”

“They have alibis.”

“I mean, they did have people working for them,” Pandora frowned.

“Of course…” Icarus sighed. “We all agreed that Castor was the most viable option, right?”

“Yeah,” the other two frowned.

Mayes shook their head. “None of the rest of these people…”

“No,” Pandora agreed.

“...are suitable. And, we’re not just gonna- ”

“No no no,” Icarus stopped them. “What I was insinuating was that…”

“Someone did it ‘cuz they were jealous?”

“Maybe, or…”

“Other personal reasons?” Pandora offered.

“Or,” Mayes looked across the room, “I mean, don’t you think… Not saying it  _ was _ the same thing we saw before, but if it was the same thing we saw near the school…”

“It looked similar,” Icarus mused. “I saw a footprint outside of the Temple of Pelor here.”

“What kind of footprint?”

Icarus pointed up to the roof. “That kind of footprint. Bestial.”

“You sure? Okay, so, hear me out… If it’s a bestial creature, it might not have anything to do with any of these people. It could just be… random attacks, that… wrong place, wrong time, you know?”

“We should really look up on the roof,” Pandora advised.

Icarus gave a small chuckle. “Yeah, see if we can get up there better than I did.”

“I kind of want to have a look at the body, probably, as well,” Mayes considered.

“Yeah,” Pandora sighed.

“Let’s interview people as well,” Icarus rubbed his head. “We’ve got a lot to do. Should one do each, or…?”

“Yeah, maybe…” Pandora considered. “Who wants to do what?”

“...I’ve dealt with bodies before, injuries like that,” Icarus shrugged. “I can deal with that.”

“I think it’s more important to have a look at the anatomy of it,” Mayes advised.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“It’s what I’ve been studying recently.”

“I mean, sure, if you want to do it.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I feel like you’re light footed enough to get to the roof,” Icarus pressed.

Mayes shrugged. “Okay.”

“And, Pandora? You happy to talk to people?”

Pandora looked to the floor, her voice quiet. “Sure.”

  
  


As the others went off, Pandora moved around the room, asking everybody their whereabouts. Voltus claimed he was winding down with one of the servant girls, pointing her out. Very sheepishly, she confirmed his alibi. Two staff members were able to confirm Tithe’s alibi, that he was in the kitchen getting more food, and talking with the staff while they cleaned up. Lorzize, the dragonborn, claimed he had been reading in the library. He explained that Ursus had also been in there with him for a while before leaving. Onias, Dietrich, and Stelios all claimed they had been in their rooms, alone. Finally, Antheo claimed he had been with Cassandra by the pool in the garden.

Using what she had learned in her classes to study their body language, Pandora was able to delve a bit further. Stelios was incredibly bad at lying, and it was written all over his face that he hadn’t been by himself. However, from what they had learned over the evening, Pandora was able to assume he had likely been with Heira. Antheo seemed genuine about his alibi, though he appeared quite upset. Onias and Dietrich were doing quite well to give their separate excuses, but to Pandora, it was quite clear what they had been up to as well. Ursus claimed that he went back to his room after his time in the library, but Pandora didn’t get a sense that he was lying.

The rest of the suitors had been in the retiring room, except for Titus. Titus’s father informed her that Titus was asleep upstairs, as he hadn’t wanted to rouse a child for the sake of a murder. Studying his face for a moment, the father seemed quite dismissive, though there was definitely something worried in his expression.

  
  


Mayes headed up to the balcony, scooting to a window ledge and climbing quickly up a shutter before landing on the roof. There were a number of dislodged tiles scattered about, allowing them to vaguely track the route the person or creature had crossed with dirty footmarks, but there wasn’t much else up there. Walking around a bit more, Mayes got the impression that the creature must have been perched just over the balcony at some point, attacking Castor where blood was smeared across the balustrade and balcony tiles there.

The footmarks were a mixture of paw prints and hands, as if someone had been squatting down. Unable to find a reason why Castor would have been up there in the first place, Mayes scooted back down.

  
  


Icarus went out to the body. Krieos’s butler was out there waiting with it, the corpse now covered with a sheet. He nodded to Icarus, allowing him to examine it.

Icarus took the sheet off, looking over the wounds. Quite a few of the wounds were claw marks, with one across his face, chest, and thigh, but there was a knife wound in his gut. The knife had likely been what had killed him, but it seemed there had been at least a few claw strikes first, before he was turned around and stabbed in the gut. There was no knife to be found.

It didn’t seem like a random attack.

Searching over Castor’s body, Icarus found a handful of gold and silver coins, a medal from the city, and a note.

The note read,

  
  


_ Balcony. 10:00pm. _

  
  


Icarus sighed, and held the note up to the butler. “Do you recognize this writing?”

The butler shook their head. “I’m afraid not.”

Icarus tapped his fingers in thought. “Okay.”

Castor had returned from the front gate about fifteen minutes earlier. Now, it was almost half past ten. After examining the body, Icarus clocked the time of the murder at about 10:14pm.

He glanced up with half a theory, but there was no full moon tonight. It was near the end of the month, and the moon was almost completely gone.

Icarus covered Castor respectfully, closing his eyes and giving him his last rites, pressing his holy symbol to Castor’s chest. After saying a few words, he headed back inside.

  
  


The trio convened in the hallway.

“So,” Mayes addressed the others. “Anything useful?”

“Everyone’s alibis seem mostly watertight,” Pandora frowned. “The only person who looked kind of concerned as I was talking to him was Titus’s father. He was in the retiring room with you, I know, but he looked a little… flustered, I suppose.”

Icarus nodded, considering. “Where’s Titus?”

“Titus is asleep.”

“Okay.”

“That tracks,” Mayes nodded.

“I found a note on Castor’s body.”

“Oh?” the other two chorused.

“It said  _ balcony at 10:00pm.” _

Mayes pursued their lips. “...Huh.”

“So he maybe knew who he was going to meet?” Pandora theorized.

Icarus shrugged. “Potentially.”

“Because… would he not have been more wary if he didn’t know who he was meeting?”

“Or he thought he was going to meet someone,” Mayes continued.

“Maybe…”

Icarus looked back over to Mayes. “How about you?”

“Um, there’s a… kind of mix of prints up on the roof?” Mayes frowned. “There’s… There’s animal prints like you described seeing before, but there’s also handprints? Like…”

“Bestial humanoid?”

“Bestial humanoid creature of some description. And there’s obvious spots where it was sort of… lying in wait. But not much else.”

“Can I see the note?” Pandora asked.

Icarus handed it over. “Yeah.”

She considered it. “Do you think maybe Krieos, when all these invitations were sent out, whether he received any correspondence back to RSVP?”

“Check the handwriting?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s worth asking him,” Mayes shrugged.

“He said he only got very few,” Icarus recalled. “Maybe three, four, five… But it’s worth asking, definitely. That’s a really good idea.”

“Short of getting everyone to write on a bit of paper,” Pandora nodded.

“So we know we’ve seen a creature similar to this…” Icarus frowned. “...Lorakai told me something is going to happen in the city. He doesn’t know what it is, but he wanted me not around.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“Something is going to happen?”

“It was related to the student that we saw. Well, we didn’t see, because they were invisible, but the one that came into the infirmary when we came back from our exam.”

“You think that the creature attacked a student?”

“Potentially. Lorakai certainly thinks something big is going on.”

“Hmm…”

“I don’t want to dismiss everyone at this event, but… Part of me believes this is an outside force coming in.”

“No, I agree with you,” Mayes nodded.

“But it was premeditated,” Pandora countered.

Icarus shrugged. “And he was gonna be here.”

“Yeah…”

“Exactly,” Mayes frowned.

“If it was the creature that attacked a student, doesn’t that seem a bit random?” Pandora pressed. “What did the student and an Armiger have in connection?”

“That’s something we should probably try and find out,” Icarus replied. “We don’t even know which student it was.”

“No…”

“It’s just a theory, anyways…”

“No no no, it’s valid…”

The three of them heard shouting break out in the great hall.

Icarus moved quickly. “Okay, let’s go deal with that.”

Heading in, they saw several people pointing accusatory fingers at each other. Ivan Leonida was accusing Ursus. It seemed that the crowd had discovered the extent of what had happened, perhaps from the staff. There were several people on Ivan’s side, and having heard that nobody here really knew who Ursus was when he came from Marlborough, many people had decided that if it was an animal attack, surely it was the shifter.

Icarus shot a gust of wind upwards, shaking the chandelier on the ceiling. The noise grabbed the crowd’s attention, and they looked over.

“This is helping no one,” Pandora frowned.

“I’m just saying,” Ivan sneered. “It’s probably worth considering.”

“I don’t think he did it,” Mayes declared.

“Me neither,” Icarus followed.

Ivan squinted at the trio.

“Have you tried talking to the guy?” Mayes pressed.

Ursus stood by the far wall, arms crossed as he gave a bitter laugh. “Talking, that’s a funny word for it. I’m telling you, I was in my room.”

“By yourself?” Ivan pushed.

Icarus looked the shifter over. His eyes were a bit glazed, and he looked quite distant, as if he wasn’t fully with the conversation. Interestingly, Mayes noticed he was no longer trembling.

“I think we should just have some discussions in private, rather than in public where people can just shout,” Icarus declared, making direct eye contact with Alexis’s father.

Ivan stared back, unflinching.

Voltus, who was leaning against another wall, piped up. “Besides, if we’re just gonna point fingers, why don’t we point fingers at Tyrannus? You brought your youngest son? Everybody knows that your oldest son is afflicted with something. How do we know your youngest isn’t as well?”

Tyrannus looked over sharply. “Whatever might  _ afflict _ my family is none of your concern. It has  _ nothing _ to do with this.”

Icarus glared over to Voltus. “And once again, I will put forth that pointing fingers is doing nothing to help. Thank you for your input,  _ sit down.” _

Icarus’s voice boomed through the room, and the men shuffled slightly back, looking a bit ashamed at themselves before a few returned to their seats.

Krieos returned to the trio at the front. “If you want to make use of the retiring room to question anyone, please, be my guest.”

“Thank you,” Icarus nodded. “We’ll take people in one at a time.”

“Okay.”

The trio collected Ursus first, and he followed them in. They stood in the retiring room, with several lounge seats around them, a fireplace throwing warm, flickering light over the murals on the walls.

Ursus didn’t sit, instead standing in front of the fire and pacing slightly.

“You okay?” Mayes began. “You were kind of nervous earlier...”

“I’m fine,” he mumbled.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Icarus studied him. “...Do you know what’s going on right now?”

Ursus thought for a moment. “One of the suitors was killed?”

Pandora looked down at her notes. “You told me that you were in the library for awhile, but then you went to your room.”

“I did.”

“Just a bit unfortunate that no one can verify that.”

He sighed. “Well, not everybody is here with an entourage, are they?”

“No…”

“Why exactly are you here?” Mayes wondered. “No one seems to know very much about you.”

“Why is anybody here? To win the hand of Cassandra Krieos,” he shrugged.

“...But… to what end?”

Ursus sighed again. “Really just to… start a union between Marlborough and Erran. We have a bloody history, as I’m sure you know.”

“That’s fair…”

“These accusations are not gonna make it any easier.”

“We’re not accusing anybody,” Icarus mediated. “We’re trying to get to the bottom of this. This is just a questioning.”

As he spoke, Icarus noticed a bit of a vinegary scent around Ursus, but he wasn’t sure where to place it.

“So what, you just went up to your room to relax after everything?” Mayes summarized. “Like I said, you were… You seemed really uptight, earlier.”

“I was just winding down for the evening,” Ursus pressed. “It’s late. Things weren’t particularly going in my favor, I wasn’t gonna hang around.”

“That’s fair…”

“Like I said, we’re not here to accuse you,” Icarus repeated. “We’re just trying to get information. We’ll be doing this with everybody, but… Is there any way you can corroborate what you were doing in your room? That you went there?”

“I don’t think anybody saw me,” Ursus rubbed his face. “I was simply… in my room! I don’t know what else I can possibly tell you…”

Pandora whispered over to Icarus. “I don’t think we’re going to get anything different here.”

“No,” Icarus agreed.

Ursus shook his head. “Look, I’m tired, and I want to go and rest.”

“I know.”

Pandora glanced to the others. “Unless anyone else has any questions for him, I think we should let him go.”

“Agreed.”

“Just let him go,” Mayes nodded.

“I don’t think you can go back to your room, though,” Icarus apologized. “You’ll have to go back to the hall.”

Ursus resigned himself to it, putting on a strained smile. “That’s fine, that’s fine…”

The trio led him back to the hall, trading him out for Stelios. As they collected him, bringing him back to the retiring room, Pandora pulled Mayes aside.

“Why are we doing this?” she whispered. “Like, we’re not detectives…”

“...I… I guess we’re just trying to figure out information to… help?” Mayes reached.

“I guess.”

“It just seems like the right thing to do.”

“I know, just… We’re not qualified for this!”

“Well,” Mayes swallowed, “No, Pandora, but…”

“I mean, the guards will probably just ask everyone the same questions anyways.”

“Probably, but it’s worth keeping some kind of order, and just… passing on what we are able to learn so that… it makes things easier.” They studied her for a moment. “You okay?”

Pandora was absolutely exhausted from all of the performing she had to do. “Yeah, sorry. Long night.”

Mayes gave her a small hug, which she returned. “It’s okay,” they assured her.

She steeled herself to continue. “Okay. Let’s carry on.”

“Yeah.”

Stelios took a seat in one of the chairs of the reclining room. “...Kind of a bad business, isn’t it. All of this.”

“It is indeed,” Icarus returned. “So you can imagine why we’d want to try and just question everybody.”

“Sure.”

“So where were you?”

Stelios took a pause. “...I’ll be completely honest with you. I was with Cassandra’s cousin.”

“Yeah, we figured,” Mayes shrugged, unimpressed.

“Can she corroborate that?” Icarus continued.

“...She can.” Stelios looked between the three of them, realizing the trio were likely more than they seemed. “The three of you… aren’t strangers tonight, are you...”

“Don’t suppose that’s important anymore,” Pandora returned. “A man has died.”

“Exactly,” Icarus followed.

“I understand,” Stelios assured them. “I don’t want to get in the way of your… investigation, if that’s what this is.”

“Thank you.”

“You didn’t happen to hear anything strange, from where you were?” Mayes pressed. “Just thinking, it’s very obvious from what I saw on the roof that he was killed on the balcony, and thrown down, so… People on that floor, perhaps? Strange noises, thuds? Skittering on the roof?”

Stelios’s eyes flashed with realization. “I’ll tell you what I did hear, I did hear something on the roof. We went up to Cassandra’s room, um… and we thought it sounded like, I don’t know… I think Heira said large birds on the roof or something, moving around.”

“Large birds?” Pandora echoed.

Mayes crossed their arms. “Huh.”

“This was about… half nine? You know, it was just… just noises. Just something moving up there,” Stelios shrugged.

“Scrabbling noises?” Pandora pressed. “Or like, birds squawking noises?”

“No, no. Scrabbling. We laughed about it, I said  _ I don’t think we have any big birds like that around here,” _ Stelios grinned, chuckling a bit before his expression fell again.

“But no sound of conversation or anything?” Mayes clarified.

“They were pretty far away,” Icarus shrugged.

“Cassandra’s room is quite far from the balcony,” Stelios agreed. “But I didn’t hear any screaming.”

“Then perhaps, if we ask somebody whose room was closer,” Mayes mused, “They’ll have heard something.”

They moved through the suitors one by one, questioning the same way. Onias and Dietrich admitted where they had been, but they asked to keep it secret from Cassandra’s father.

“I promise,” Icarus agreed.

Moving through, Tythe the goblin recalled that as he had been heading to the kitchens, he had seen the note left on a side table for one of the staff members, who later took it to Castor. He pointed out the member of staff for them, and the trio took them into the retiring room as well. The staff member explained that they had thought the note had been left by Cassandra.

Cassandra, however, was adamant that she hadn’t written the note. She sat in the armchair across from them, honest and genuine. “I didn’t leave a note, I didn’t leave a note for Castor. I was with Antheo at the pool out back. I did want to speak to Castor later, but I didn’t get a chance to find him, or leave him a note. Can I see the note?”

“Yeah,” Icarus passed it over.

She looked at it, a bit confused. “...That looks a lot like my handwriting. Here,” she scribbled out another note, copying the text exactly and holding them up.

“Is there any part of the night that you don’t remember?” Pandora questioned.

“Not at all.”

The papers looked nearly identical. Looking at them closely enough, Mayes was able to determine that the curls of some letters weren’t quite the same, with hesitations on some of the lines. “Yeah, this is… this is a forgery. But it would mean that someone has access to, or knows your handwriting, well enough to be able to copy it.”

Cassandra shifted in her seat. “Well that’s uncomfortable...”

“Do you have any idea who would benefit from you not marrying?” Icarus pressed. “I know it sounds… trivial, at this moment, but…”

“I don’t know. I’d hate to think that this could be about  _ me…” _

“Of course, but, anything is a possibility at this point.”

She thought. “I don’t think so.”

“I think it’s more a case of his position, than anything else,” Mayes mused.

“If they wanted to stop me marrying, there’s a whole room full of people for me to marry.”

“I know,” Icarus frowned.

Cassandra rubbed her face, her voice breaking. “This is just so stressful…”

Pandora gave her a half hearted pat on the shoulder. “Well, whoever it was knew that… If Castor was under the impression that it was Cassandra, who was leading him up there…”

“That he’d go,” Icarus finished.

“So it’s not necessarily that they were watching Cassandra. They were wanting a way to get to Castor.”

“Mhm.”

“I just find it odd that no one heard any noise of a struggle,” Mayes frowned. “Or screaming…”

Icarus shrugged. “It was quick.”

“How quick?”

“He got slashed in the face and arm, and then spun around and stabbed.”

“Stabbed?”

Cassandra looked away, covering her mouth and whimpering. “Can I go?”

Mayes blinked up. “Yes!”

“Yeah, sorry!” Icarus looked sheepishly over, having forgotten she was there.

“Okay…” she quickly excused herself from the room.

As soon as she left, Mayes turned back to Icarus. “Stabbed?”

“Stabbed,” Icarus confirmed. “You said it, the thing had beastial feet and human-like hands, right?”

“Yeah, but…”

“From what I gathered from the body, it looked like the knife was the thing that finished him off.”

“Huh…”

“So it was a quick maneuver, if you say it came down from the roof, slashed at him…”

Pandora frowned. “You sure that he was slashed first, and then he was turned around?”

“That’s what it seemed like.”

“So something came from behind him- ”

Mayes leaned in. “Well, it seems like- ”

“So they grabbed him from behind,” Icarus continued. “It would have been scratched- ”

“But why turn him around to stab him in the stomach?” Pandora returned. “Why not stab him in the back?”

Icarus shrugged. “Personal?”

“I mean, better entry to the organs,” Mayes reasoned.

“Yeah…”

Pandora grimaced. “I don’t like that you know that.”

“It’s kind of my job,” Mayes shrugged.

“But what, did they want him to see them?”

“Maybe,” Icarus thought. “It could have been a message. Maybe not even for Castor.”

“Maybe…” Pandora folded her arms, still muttering to herself. “But why turn him around? Why not stab him in the back?”

“Maybe we should talk to Krieos,” Icarus suggested. “He’s the only one we haven’t really spoken to yet.”

They went to find Krieos. He had excused himself from the main hall to sit in his office, resting a hand on his face. “Please, come in.”

Mayes led the group forwards. “Thanks.”

He rubbed his forehead. “Quite the eventful night.”

“I’m sorry that it ended this way,” Pandora offered.

“The guards should be here any minute. They can relieve you three of having to do this.”

“It’s not a problem,” Icarus assured him. “It’s part of what we do.”

“We’ll tell them what we found out so far,” Mayes agreed.

“How close were you to Castor?”

Krieos thought. “Not massively.”

“Did you speak often, or was he invited just for this?”

“We didn’t speak that frequently, but we met at a few events. Run in the same circles, and such.”

“Do you know if he had any enemies?” Pandora continued.

“We imagine in his position, he’s gained a few,” Icarus followed. “But, any jump to mind?”

Krieos shook his head. “Not that I know of, any specific enemies. I mean, the Armiger of Erran is surely gonna have enemies, in anyone who is an enemy of Erran. But, it was clearly someone who knew he was here tonight, at my event.”

“And was able to forge your daughter’s handwriting as well,” Mayes added.

The Lord sighed. “Great.”

“So, I don’t know if you’re aware of anyone who would have access to samples of her handwriting? Or would be close enough to be able to copy her handwriting?”

“...Of all of her hobbies, she writes a lot of letters. They come in and out of this house via staff, I don’t know where they end up.”

“Right…”

Icarus leaned into Pandora. “Antheo?” he whispered.

“Maybe,” she mumbled back.

Icarus turned back to the Lord. “Thank you.”

“Look, the three of you…” Krieos raked another hand through his hair, “I’m gonna send everybody back to their rooms and ask them to wait there for the guard. It would probably be best if you did the same.”

“Sure. I’m sorry, that this happened in your home.”

“You know, shouldn’t be sorry for me. This is about the loss of life.”

“Of course.”

“You’re dismissed.”

  
  


The trio headed back to their room, settling themselves in the wide, decorated space with the three soft feathered beds. Sitting there, they heard the city guard arrive through an open window, their carriages called inside the gates. There was knocking on various doors down the hallway as they moved around the house. One came to their room, asking them what they knew. The trio relayed everything they learned, as well as their true purpose in the house for Delphos. The guards took down everything they said, informing them they would be in touch if they had any further questions. Krieos had given his word that the trio hadn’t been involved in the killing, and the guards weren’t regarding them as suspects.

When the questioning had finished, Pandora took off the necklace, putting it away before going straight to sleep. She climbed into the bed, curling up into the covers.

Icarus headed to bed afterwards, with Mayes staying up to bumble around for a bit before following.

The three of them laid down, finding themselves drifting off quite quickly with the exhaustion of the evening, and the comfortable beds much softer than they were used to.

Through the night, Pandora was plagued by dreams. In her sleep, she saw herself surrounded by fire in the heart of a mountain. She stood at the edge of the mountain side, slabs of black rock stretching out before her like stepping stones through a lake of molten lava, bubbling and spitting violently all around her. In the center of the volcano, there was a shard of black stones sticking up like a triumphant altar, beckoning her forwards.

Behind her, she heard chants. They seemed to call her name, but it wasn’t her name as she recognized it. It was something distant, something she hadn’t heard before. The voices implored her to step out onto the first of the stones, floating in the heart of the volcano.

Her feet moved as though willed beyond her control, sending her jumping onto the first platform. She felt it sink under her weight, almost under the surface of the lava. The lake of fire around her hissed, taunting her, daring her to drown in its heat.

Her heart hammered in her chest. Her eyes focused on the rock altar before her, and suddenly, a figure started to form there.

Standing in front of it, hand outstretched towards her, was her mother.

“Pandora,” she called to her, the lake of fire reflected in her black eyes.

“Mom?”

“Take my hand!”

“Mom…”

Pandora woke up with a start, breathing fast. Pressing her hands to her face, she steadied herself, blinking away the tears. She looked over to the others, but they were asleep. It was quite early, and still dark outside.

She closed her eyes, and sent a message to her father.

_ “Dad, it’s Dora. It’s so early, sorry to wake you. I just had to say, I love you. More than anything.” _

Her father’s words rang back into her head.  _ “Dora honey, I love you too. I don’t know what’s going on, but… I’m always here, no matter the problem. Stay strong.” _

His voice gave her a sense of calm and comfort, easing the panic that was hammering in her chest.

She managed to slip off for a few more hours.

  
  


The three of them awoke to light pouring in through their window.

Mayes rolled over to face the others. “Morning.”

“I think I slept in,” Icarus rubbed his eyes. “What time is it?”

“You deserve a lie in every once in a while, Icarus. Especially after a night like that.”

Icarus splayed his arms across the mattress. “I don’t want to get out of this bed. Do you think they would notice if we took the beds?”

“Yes Icarus, I think they would notice if you took the beds.”

“Not if we were real sneaky.”

“Even  _ I _ can’t stealth a bed.”

“You don't know that until you try!”

“I’m not gonna,” Mayes grinned. “Come on, get up.”

Icarus groaned as Mayes started to get ready for the day. After a short while, there was a knock on their door.

Mayes opened it. “Morning.”

“Morning,” Greta smiled back. “You’re wanted in the reception room.”

“Thank you,” Icarus replied. “We’ll be there immediately.”

Greta left, and Icarus went to rouse Pandora. She pulled the blanket over her head, protesting the disturbance.

“Sunspot,” Icarus sang. “We gotta go.”

“No…” Pandora moaned.

“We gotta go.”

“Can we take the mattress?”

“Right? Mayes won’t let me!”

Pandora poked her head out from the covers. “Mayes, you’re mean.”

“Mayes, you’re mean!” Icarus echoed.

“Yes,” Mayes agreed, smiling. “Come on.”

Pandora got up.

  
  


The trio made their way down the stairs, noticing that none of the other bedroom doors were open yet. It was still fairly early in the morning. Greta led them down to the reception room, gesturing to the door and letting them in.

Waiting for them there was Domina Octavia Petri.

Icarus’s eyebrows shot up. “Dominia?”

The trio straightened instantly, Pandora giving a little squeal of surprise.

“Good morning,” Mayes greeted.

“Good morning,” she returned. “Please, take a seat.”

As soon as they sat, she stood. “I have been sent word of what happened last night. And I have come here this morning to relieve you of your duties following last night’s events.”

“We can tell you everything we found out,” Icarus offered. “We interviewed people, and inspected everywhere…”

“As I understand, you’ve passed that information already to the city guard?”

They nodded.

“Which is good. Well done, the three of you. These are…” her expression grew serious, “...Incredibly unfortunate and unpredictable circumstances. I am afraid we cannot permit you to continue with this portion of your exam because of them.”

“What?” Pandora gasped.

“Understandable,” Icarus nodded.

“You will not be expected to finish this task,” the Domina declared.

“What does that mean, though? For our… our grades?” Pandora worried. “I mean, we had him singled out as the one we would have chosen…”

“This does not count as a… failure, as such, against your grades. But it does not mean an automatic pass. For the time being, it will be taken into consideration in your final grades, but there is a lot more pressure on your final task and your written exams in order to pass.”

“...Okay.”

“Understandable,” Mayes sighed.

“Unfortunately,” she continued, “It’s part of the Delphos guidelines that should any loss of life occur during an exam task, students are unable to be given a pass. I understand that you’ll respectfully accept that.”

Icarus looked down. “Of course.”

“I hear that the three of you were doing well. I’m sorry this has happened.”

“It’s not us that need to have apologies to. Like you said, unfortunate circumstances.”

“I know the three of you are good at what you do. I have faith in you that you’ll do well on your third task, and this won’t matter, overall.”

“Yeah,” Mayes bumped Icarus with their arm. “Just gotta ace it.”

“Exactly,” Icarus gave a small smile, turning to bump Pandora. “We will.”

Pandora still seemed very worried. Icarus squeezed her hand a bit.

“I have brought a carriage up,” Octavie offered. “I can take the three of you back to the school, if you gather your things.”

“Sure, yeah, of course.” Icarus bowed his head. “We’ll meet you out front.”

As the Domina waited for then, the trio somberly gathered their things. Icarus gave Pandora a big hug, which she returned.

They joined Octavia out front, sitting in the carriage with her. The ride back was quiet and somber as they travelled back to Erran, and back to Delphos.

  
  


Icarus went for a jog, letting all his excess energy out before heading back for quite a bit of studying as well. As he jogged, he passed the shop he had visited previously. They were open. Sticking in his head, they had what he needed.

“Thank you!”

They gave him a bit of a look, raising an eyebrow before handing over the bill to take back to the school.

Icarus gave it back. “Can’t you just send this to me? I...um… That’s what you do, right?”

With a sigh, they took it back. “I suppose…”

“Thank you!” Icarus smiled. “You’re the best! At what you do!”

He flashed a double thumbs up before taking his purchase to leave.

  
  


Mayes went off to destress, doing a bit of painting and gardening before sitting down to revise. Later that afternoon, they received word that the enchanters shop was ready for a consultation about the hide.

Scuttling over there and making their way to Marie’s Armour Outfitters at the edge of the shopping district in Erran, they saw Marie, the halfling, waiting behind the counter. “Ah!”

“Hey,” Mayes nodded.

“Good to see you! Good to see you…”

“You too.”

“We have plans for your item.”

“Okay? I’d love to hear them.”

“The two of us have been studying this incredible material you’ve provided us with, and it does have its own unique property.”

“Okay?”

“It seems that whilst in contact with this hide in any fashion, it imbues what you’re holding with a sort of arcane essence. And we think we can fashion it into something that would imbue any weapon that you were holding with this same arcane power.”

Mayes was over the moon, though trying to keep a straight face. “...Yeah, that’s incredible…”

“The most incredible thing about it, is that the property belongs to the hide itself. It’s not an enchantment that we’d have to put on it. Although there are other enchantments we could put on it, but you did mention your budget, and we don’t want to blow your budget, break the bank…”

“Yeah, I think I’ll just go with the freebie.”

“So, we were considering what you told us about what you do…”

“Mhm?”

“And our thoughts were either a pair of gloves, or a pair of bracers, or perhaps a hood?”

“Um… I think I’d like to go with bracers?”

“Okay!”

“Yeah, I just… that. Yeah, be a cool thing to add to my look,” Mayes chuckled.

“Well,” the halfling grinned. They began quickly scuttling around the shop, opening several drawers and taking out different bracers in different designs and flourishes. Laying them out, it was clear the halfling was invigorated by the idea of making this.

They asked Mayes to choose between the designs, and Mayes paused for a few moments in thought, almost overwhelmed by the options. In the end, they chose a pair of hide bracers with embossing down the side to look like ink spills.

Marie was absolutely delighted, quickly getting out some pieces of paper to draw and sketch out different ideas until they had the perfect design. “Obviously, the cost of the enchantment would be relieved from this item, considering that the hide already comes with its own arcane energy.”

“Appreciate that,” Mayes nodded.

“But, it’s still a custom item. We’re looking at pricing this around 200 gold?”

“Perfect, done. Absolute deal.”

“Fantastic! We would, of course, also be able to imbue the bracers with a boost in magical defense, if you wanted? That would be a sort of additional… 2,500 gold…?”

“Nope, sorry,” Mayes laughed. “I don’t have that kind of budget.”

“That’s understandable, understandable. We can always do it at a later date, so…”

“Okay…”

“Leave this with us for another couple of days, and we’ll send word when it’s done.”

“Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it, and…”

“Thank you for giving us a chance to work with this incredible material,” Marie beamed.

“Thank you for working with it. I will tell all of my Delphos friends, from Marie’s.”

“Very, very nice!”

“No worries.”

Marie began gathering things up again, waving as Mayes left before hurriedly going behind the counter and pulling out the hide to get to work.

  
  


The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully. Pandora wrote down the dreams she had been having before going to the library to do a bit of reading. Not particularly expecting to find much, she looked through some divination books, but the most she was able to turn up in her search was the locations of the volcanoes in Caldera. All of them were centered around the Smoking Hills, about 150 to 200 miles south of Erran. But she already knew that, and found herself a bit frustrated to find no other text in her search that gave her any more information.

Moving on, she began to revise for her upcoming alchemy exam.

  
  


The rest of the day passed into the evening. The three of them were revising hard, a bit glum as the second task hung over their heads. The work ahead would be quite heavy.

They slept, and the next morning, there was a knock at each of their dormitory doors. All of them were told by the House Masters overlooking their Domuses that there was a visitor for them waiting at the front desk.

The trio convened, and headed out across the courtyard to the main building. Waiting at the front was a pale skinned elf with blue eyes and long grey hair to his shoulders. None of them recognized him.

Mayes regarded the stranger warily. “Morning.”

“Hi!” the elf grinned. “There you three are.”

“Hi, how are you?” Icarus politely returned.

“Morning,” Pandora nodded.

“Good, good!” Can I speak to you somewhere private?” the elf asked. “Is there somewhere private we can talk?”

“...Sure,” Icarus and Mayes agreed.

Pandora regarded him. “Sure, sorry… Who are you?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” the elf promised.

“Okay…”

Icarus raised a brow. “Okay?”

The trio led the visitor to an empty common room, checking inside to make sure nobody was inside. It was about 9:00am.

The elf walked into the room and closed the door, making sure it was shut before dropping their disguise.

Orion grinned at them.

Pandora gasped, running over to hug him.

“Hey!” Mayes grinned.

“Oh, hi!” Icarus beamed.

Orion caught Pandora, wrapping his arms around her. “Hi!”

“Hi!” she smiled.

“Sorry about that, I was just, um…”

“It’s okay!” Icarus assured him.

“You know, I don’t like drawing too much attention. I didn’t want to just walk into the school?”

“Right,” Mayes nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

“Sure,” Icarus laughed. “We’ve had a lot going on, that threw us for a loop.”

“Sorry!” he chuckled.

“It’s okay.”

“I would have told you I was coming, but I just wanted to come straight away, I just… heard back from the Brotherhood.”

Icarus’s face hardened.

“Oh?” the other two chorused, probing.

“Yeah, I’ve had word from them,” Orion continued. “I didn’t tell them any of the details, but, they are willing to meet when they’re next in Erran.”

“Okay…”

“When will that be?” Icarus pressed.

“Um, they said they were coming on the 11th of the month, I think? That’s not the only thing I came about, um… I was thinking on what you told me, about the griffon rider, and… the bandits, you said, tried to capture the griffon?”

“Yeah, exotic animals.”

“Obviously, those people… those people killed one of the members of the Brotherhood, and… I don’t want you walking into this scenario meeting with them, for them to put up their defenses straight away. I think it would be better if you had a solid case for getting them on your side before you try and question them about this contract. If that makes sense, I just… it’s just been going through my head for the last few days.”

Icarus continued to push forward. “What do I need to do?”

“Well, those smugglers who tried to trap the griffon… I’ve heard a few rumors that they might be operating out of Erran. There’s been word of an exotic creature, some sort of monster, escaped from somewhere in the city.”

“What kind of monster?” Pandora worried.

“I can’t tell you much, I’ve just heard a few things going around. Apparently, it’s been seen around the Agora, in the center of the city. I was just thinking, if you can find out who the creature smugglers are, perhaps provide some more information to the Brotherhood about who killed their man… then, they’d be on your side straight away.”

“We can do that,” Icarus nodded.

“Is this the type of thing where they’d want us to just get information, so that they can…” Mayes frowned, “I guess, wipe out their enemy themselves?”

“Not necessarily,” Orion replied.

“So if we accidentally get in a fight…?”

“Yeah, I’m not telling you to pull your blows here.”

“Okay.”

“I told you before that the Brotherhood are on the side of justice, and as long as justice is done, it doesn’t matter who serves it.”

“Good to know. Appreciate it.”

“I just think that, as a show of good faith, if you can give them something before you ask for something… They’re more likely to open up to you, get a foothold with them. And I caught wind of this creature running around, and I thought I’d bring this to you straight away.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Pandora followed.

Icarus swallowed, clearing his throat. “...Thank you.”

Mayes gave him a nudge. “You feeling okay, Icarus?”

“Yep.”

Orion looked him over. “You sure?”

“Yeah. Thank you for this information, it’s very helpful.”

“It’s okay.”

“Appreciate it.”

“I do what I can.”

Pandora gave him a soft smile. “It’s good to see you.”

“So…” Mayes continued, “Where exactly should we start with this thing?”

“The Agora?” Icarus guessed.

“I would say ask around in the Agora,” Orion agreed. “See who’s seen the creature, where it might have come from. Um… yeah, that’s the best I can do. I picked up the trail, and I thought I’d come tell you straight away.”

“Appreciate it,” Pandora replied.

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “You’re a good friend, Orion.”

He smiled. “Thanks. If you need any help, I don’t mind hanging around.”

“You’re not busy?” Pandora checked.

Orion shrugged, grinning. “Eh.”

Icarus looked over to Pandora. “When’s your exam?”

“Tomorrow,” she replied, the stress audible in her voice.

“...So, we’ve technically got today? Unless you want to cram?”

Pandora fidgeted in place, unsure.

“Well, why don’t you come with and see how long it takes us?” Mayes mediated. “And if you need to head out quick…”

“Yeah, I probably can’t stay all day,” Pandora apologized.

“No,” Icarus assured her. “I’m not gonna make you do this.”

“I want to help you!”

“It’s fifteen minutes from here,” Orion shrugged. “We can be done in half an hour, who knows.”

“Exactly,” Mayes encouraged.

“Okay,” Pandora relented. “I should probably take a break, anyway.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Icarus grinned.

“Clear your head,” Mayes advised.

“Anyway, you’re clearly very intelligent,” Orion smiled. “I’m sure you’re gonna do great.”

Pandora scoffed.

“You are!”

“She is, and she will,” Icarus grinned.

“She will,” Mayes echoed.

Pandora shook her head. “Let’s go.”

“Alright,” Orion waved a hand through the air, and the disguise came back up once more.

The trio collected their things, and headed to the Agora with Orion.

  
  


The Agora itself was right in the center of Erran, only a fifteen minute walk from Delphos. It was the heart of the city, a wide open square accentuated with statues of Erran’s early Imperatas, some of its war heros, and an open stage for speaking.

Today was market day, and dozens of brightly colored awnings stretched out before them from endless market stalls. There was everything from fabrics to food, clothing, animals for sale, and weapons. There were speakers on podiums debating with their audiences, musicians on the corners of winding paths made by the stores singing to passerby, and members of the upper class parading around with their pets. People from every walk of life mixed here in the Agora, and the atmosphere was alive, buzzing with chatter and music, the smell of food, and a million other assaults on their senses.

Looking out, there was an ocean of stalls before them. Orion shook his head with a grin. “Where do you want to start?”

Icarus scanned the massive crowd. “I don’t know…”

“Let’s think about this methodically,” Mayes advised.

“When was this creature last spotted here?”

“Yesterday,” Orion answered.

“Yesterday. Um… the market wasn’t on yesterday, so what stalls were here?”

“Some of the permanent shops, maybe?” Pandora suggested, pointing to a few buildings and taverns around the outside of the square. “Bars and restaurants?”

“Yeah, we’ll start there,” Icarus decided.

They made their way over to a tavern,  _ The Bent Feather. _ It was run by an aarakocra who looked a bit like a falcon, with sandy colored feathers. “What can I do for you?”

“Hoping for some information, if you have it,” Pandora began. “I understand there’s been sightings of some sort of creature in the area?”

“You’re right.”

“Is there anything you can tell us about that?”

“Well… It was blue.”

“Blue?”

“I heard it was blue, didn’t see it myself. Heard it was blue, about eight feet long…”

“Who saw it?” Icarus pressed.

“Oh, one of the people who came into my tavern last night.”

“Do you know who that was?”

“The person?”

“Yeah, are they a regular, or…?”

“Yeah yeah yeah, he was a half-orc man, um, basket weaver. He might have a stall outside.”

“Okay, that’s good to know,” Mayes nodded.

“We can check with him,” Pandora agreed. “And, is there anything else that you’ve heard, or preferably seen for yourself?”

“Hmm…” they thought. “No.”

“Okay.”

“Well, we appreciate the information,” Mayes offered.

“Thank you.”

“Good luck,” the tavern owner shrugged.

“Thanks,” Mayes flashed them a thumbs up.

The owner looked a bit annoyed that they hadn’t bought a drink. Icarus looked a bit annoyed that the owner hadn’t had any useful information.

They went back into the street, weaving back and forth through the stalls until they saw a large half-orc man with short hair weaving a large basket. He was sitting on a stool behind one of the tables.

Pandora gestured over. “That’s got to be him, right?”

“Yeah,” Icarus replied, stepping up to the booth. “Morning.”

“Morning!” the half-orc’s voice boomed back.

“Uh, heard you might have seen a creature that’s been going around here?”

He leaned forwards. “I certainly have.”

“Did you see it yourself?”

“I did see it myself.”

“Okay, can you tell me more about it?”

“You’re not gonna believe this…”

“Try me,” Icarus challenged.

“It looked like a really small dragon.”

Icarus blinked. Dragons didn’t come in small sizes, unless it was a fairy dragon or pseudo dragon of some kind, or an infant. “About how small?”

“About… eight feet in length?”

Mayes squinted in confusion. “And it was... blue?”

“Yeah. Had a face like a crocodile!”

“...Huh.”

“Whereabouts did you see it?” Icarus pressed.

“Hm…” the half-orc pointed over to the back of the stage area. “It was sneaking around there, there was a crowd of people, and they all started screaming, and this thing just darted through the crowd.”

“Quickly?” Pandora clarified.

“Yeah, pretty quickly.”

“And what, was it on all fours? Or was it upright, or…?”

The basket weaver shook his head. “That’s the thing, I swear it had more than four legs.”

The students were quite perplexed. “Okay…” Icarus continued, “Is there any more information about it you can give us?”

“Or anyone who works around that kind of area who would have gotten a better view?” Mayes added.

The half-orc rubbed his chin. “Go speak to her, over there.” He gestured to a human woman at the podiums, talking and debating with her audience.

“Gotcha, thanks.”

“Thank you,” Pandora offered.

“Thanks for your help,” Icarus echoed.

The man grinned. “No problem.”

Mayes flipped him a silver, and he seemed pleased.

The trio headed over to the woman at the podiums. It seemed she was debating whether the city should have an Imperata figurehead at all. She stood on the podium, waving her hands for emphasis. “It’s an archaic notion! We do not need a figurehead for this city anymore! We are no longer an empire. We have a republic, here in Erran. We have a government, we have elected officials… I say, get rid of the Imperata!”

“She’s got a point,” Mayes shrugged.

Icarus regarded the woman. “...Yeah…There’s no debate here.”

“I mean, if it wasn’t for the Imperata,” Pandora thought, “My mother wouldn’t have had a job.”

Mayes tilted their head, making a sound of general acknowledgement.

“Yeah…” Icarus considered, not entirely convinced.

There was a bit of an awkward pause.

Mayes cleared their throat. “Let’s investigate.”

Pandora nodded, waving a hand to clear the air. “This is an argument for another time.”

They listened to the woman for another five minutes or so before she concluded. She thanked her audience for listening, and the crowd dispersed, looking generally convinced.

She came down over to the trio with a smile. “What can I do for you?”

“Creature, have you seen one?” Pandora deadpanned, rattling off the same speech they had given the other citizens. She quite clearly wanted to get moving.

“I certainly have,” the woman replied.

“Tell us about it, if you can?”

“Well it hurt my leg!”

“It did? Let’s have a look.”

She pulled out the bottom of her robe, revealing what was clearly a burn scar.

Icarus examined the wound. “That’s an electricity burn.”

“Yeah, it was just… It was just  _ breathing _ it!” the woman explained. “I was thinking it had to be one of these exotic pets that the upper classes walk around with. Honestly,” she scoffed, visibly irritated.

“Where did it come from?” Icarus hurried her on, cutting off the rising debate.

The woman blinked, shaken from the rising speech. “Huh?”

“Whereabouts did it come from?”

“I saw it quite a few times in the square. It nipped in and out of some of the dark alleyways.”

“And where was the last time you saw it?” Pandora followed. “Which way did it go?”

“Um….” she looked around the busy square, gesturing vaguely into one of the corners.

“Okay,” Mayes nodded. “And, would you say that it looked kind of like a small dragon?”

The woman frowned. “Hm… Dragon maybe, maybe more like an alligator…”

“A wyvern?” Icarus suggested.

“Or a snake with legs?”

Icarus stared at the woman. “Snake with legs?”

“How many legs?” Mayes questioned.

“Um, I think at least eight,” she replied.

“...Great,” Icarus sighed. “Can i see that? Your leg?”

“Sure,” she presented the injury again.

Icarus sent a minor healing spell her way. “Thank you for your information.”

“Oh, thank you! That feels much better. Here, take a flyer!”

She passed over a flyer with information about her next appearance at the amphitheatre, where she would be making the same speech to a larger crowd.

“Great, thank you,” Icarus took the paper. “If we have any more questions, we’ll come back. Will you be around here for long?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Alright.”

As the trio turned to leave, she stopped them. “Oh, um, if you’re looking for more information…” she gestured to an elven bard standing at the end of one of the rows of stalls, who seemed to be spinning out tales to a rather minimal audience. People walked past as the bard preached their tales out towards the crowd. “He was here yesterday.”

“Thank you. Okay…”

They headed over. The elf leaned their chin on a fist, grinning at them. “Hi. You come to listen?”

“Only if you’ve got information about the creature that’s been walking around here recently,” Pandora returned, her voice flat.

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.”

“I think you do,” Icarus returned.

“We’ve heard that you do,” Mayes frowned. “So if you could tell us, that would be really appreciated.”

The bard sighed. “I saw it yesterday. Mighty beast.”

“What did it look like?” Pandora prompted.

“Blue scales, about… I don’t know, nine feet long…”

“Alligator face?” Mayes prompted.

“Just the head.”

“Just the head?”

“Quite a long neck. Looked a bit like a dragon, but no wings.”

“Lots of legs?”

“Yeah, maybe ten or twelve.”

The trio sighed. Orion, still behind them, rubbed his face with irritation.

“Where did it go?” Mayes pressed.

“Is there anybody who can give us a better idea of what this thing might be?” Orion followed.

The bard thought. “There is a seller somewhere nearby here… probably not on the main market square, because they’re a little bit…”

“Shady?” Mayes guessed.

“Yeah… They often sell magical items made of rare creature parts, um… You can probably find them in one of the back alleys…” the bard began to give them a description, but stopped himself. “I’ve heard they never look the same twice.”

“Then how do you find them?” Icarus prompted.

“I don’t know. Look for a table selling magical items in a back alley.”

“Guess the stock will be the key,” Mayes shrugged.

“Right,” Pandora sighed, Icarus looking quite somber beside her.

“Come on,” Mayes gave the triton a bump. “Where’s that pep in your step?”

Icarus gave a nod, and walked off.

The bard went immediately back to spinning poetry of great adventures in the southern jungles that definitely had never happened.

  
  


The trio continued forwards with Orion, looking through the alleys. It didn’t take long after the four of them split up for a moment, weaving through the streets until they found a half-elf with a folded out table in front of them, a sheet thrown over it with a number of items laid out underneath. It was a darker alley, and quite far away from the main market.

The seller was medium height and almost sickly slender, with black shoulder length hair tied back in a messy bun. Their face was long, pointed, and slightly gaunt, with one blue eye and one red. They wore formal looking dark brown leather armour, which seemed relatively undamaged, and black cotton underclothes with a hood over the top.

The seller watched the approaching group very carefully as they made their way down the alleyway, holding their cloak a bit tighter around themselves.

“We’ve heard talk that you might be in the market with exotic creatures,” Icarus began.

“...I don’t know about exotic creatures,” the half-elf replied.

“But that you’re at least aware of what could be used for magical parts,” Mayes angled.

“Are you looking to buy something?”

“Or maybe we know the location of something,” Icarus bluffed.

The half-elf raised a brow. “I’m listening. Ezekiel, nice to meet you.”

“Pleasure, I’m sure,” Pandora returned.

Icarus didn’t drop Ezekiel’s gaze. “Antoni.”

Taking out one of the spare saber tooth teeth from his pocket, Icarus flicked it over. Ezekiel caught it, turning it over. “Hm. Interesting. You looking to sell, then?”

“Potentially.”

“Can I interest you in anything I’ve got here?”

“Information is what we’re looking for,” Pandora replied.

“Then information you can probably have. For a price, if I have it. Ask your questions, I’ll see what I can do.”

Icarus frowned. “I don’t know if you’re the right person…”

“Shame,” Pandora shrugged. “We can take our business elsewhere.”

Ezekiel didn’t seem convinced by the ploy. “If you’re not even gonna ask your questions…”

“Well, I don’t know…” Icarus pressed on. “That blue creature that’s been running around here, huh…?”

“Dangerous,” Pandora nodded.

“It’s not worth trying to sell to someone that might lose stock.”

“I don’t sell creatures,” Ezekiel returned.

“You have them supplied to you, though.”

“Parts.”

“Have you heard about this blue creature that’s been going around?”

“Perhaps heard a thing or two.”

“Like what?”

“...Might know some people who know something… about where it came from.”

“Well, do you know what it is?” Pandora asked.

“Don’t know exactly what it is. Heard it’s been hiding in dark places, likes holes… under the streets, that sort of thing.”

Mayes turned to whisper to Icarus. “Go down into the sewers and…?”

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Ezekiel continued. “Work information out of me for free.”

“Don’t you want that sabertooth tooth?” Pandora goaded.

Ezekiel held it up, unimpressed. “No enchantment on this. Means nothing to me,” they flicked it back.

“Alright,” Icarus passed him a gold.

Ezekiel bit down on it, checking for authenticity before tucking it into their jacket. Their hand went much deeper than it should have. “Didn’t hear this from me, but there’s a taverna in the Halfway District.  _ Gull’s Gauntlet. _ Some people around there selling rare animal parts from time to time.”

“Is that your supplier?” Icarus pressed.

“Maybe, maybe not. And… some people have heard some strange noises, coming from underneath the abandoned bathhouse in the Aerini District.”

“Makes sense if it likes to go underground,” Mayes considered.

“Watch out, because it breathes electricity.”

“That’s fine,” Icarus returned. “So do I.”

Ezekiel grinned. “I’d like to see it.”

“For a price.”

The half elf chuckled before their expression turned serious again. “There’s probably more than one.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Small, lots of legs… I’ve heard of something like that, but, much bigger. Maybe hatchlings.”

“What is it?” Pandora frowned.

“I don’t know. You’ll have to look at that yourselves. Not a magical creature expert.”

“But you think it’s something’s kids,” Mayes concluded.

“Everyone’s saying  _ dragon _ around the square, aren’t they? Had some people down here buying wards, thinking they were about to be attacked by a blue dragon.”

Icarus looked over the items on the table. Surprisingly, they seemed like genuine magical items. On the table was a spell scroll that would enable those who learned it to conjure a ghostly, skeletal hand to aid in battle. There was also a set of bracers with arrows engraved all down the outside of them, a potion of greater healing, and a cloak seemingly made out of some kind of creature membrane. Finally, there was another spell scroll that would teach those with arcane abilities what seemed to be a much higher spell.

Ezekiel, noticing Icarus’s gaze, pulled out a longsword and placed it on the table over a folded cloth. It was sharp and slightly curved, with animal claws ingrained into the handle. “See anything that suits your fancy?”

“What kind of prices are these?” Icarus returned.

Ezekiel informed them that the sword alone would set them back 24,000 gold pieces.

Icarus kept a straight face. “Maybe.”

The half-elf went on to explain that the higher level spell scroll would teach them how to cast a powerful illusion spell, causing the victim to believe themselves to be trapped, as if suddenly surrounded by danger. Landing the spell on its own would pack a psychic punch, but trying to break through the mental prison would deal another devastatingly painful blow. 2,500 gold.

The cloak was revealed to be a Cloak Of The Bat. 6,000 gold pieces.

The greater healing potion, 150.

The other spell scroll, 20 gold pieces.

The bracers, 1,500.

Icarus shook his head. “Keep your wares. Thank you for the information.”

“What’s the lowest you would go on the spell scroll?” Pandora wondered, pointing over to the cheaper one.

“What are you offering?” Ezekiel returned.

“...I’ll do eight.”

“Eight down from twenty? That’s quite the stretch. Eighteen.”

“Eight,” Pandora repeated.

“Eighteen.”

“Eight gold, five silver.”

“Thirteen gold,” Icarus offered.

Pandora turned to him with a frown. “No!”

“Thirteen gold,” Icarus repeated.

The seller chuckled. “Sixteen.”

Mayes grinned. “Fifteen.”

“No!” Pandora protested.

“Fifteen…” Ezekiel mused. “Fine, you have a deal.”

“Guys!” Pandora tried to stop them, but Icarus and Mayes were already counting out their coins.

“You want it,” Mayes shrugged.

“Yeah, but I didn’t need you to pay for it!”

The coins were passed over, and Ezekiel handed the scroll across. “Pleasure doing business.”

Orion, who had been standing behind, waited for them to be done before leaning over the table. “So what’s the cloak actually do?”

The seller’s face perked up. “Well, wearing this cloak… Hard to see you in the dark, harder still to see you in the dim light, and… wear it right, supposedly it can make you fly. On top of that… you ever wanted to change your form? Turn yourself into an animal, something like that, for a short time? Cast a spell to do that with this cloak…”

Icarus leaned back on his heels with a laugh. “I’ve got eight silver, my friend.”

Orion studied the cloak, and then nodded. “Yeah, go on then.” He reached into a pouch that was not visible in his current disguise, holding up a bag of money. Looking the seller in the eye, he tilted his head in thought. “I’d say… drop a grand off it.”

“That’s quite the haggle,” Ezekiel grinned.

The two of them went back and forth for a moment.

“I’d say drop a grand off it. It’d be a shame if the enforcements found out where your little shop was,” Icarus needled.

Ezekiel’s face went cold and unamused. “Is that right, Antoni?”

Icarus shrugged.

“...I’ll take 500 off.”

“Fine,” Orion nodded. “500 it is.” Orion passed over 5,500 gold for the cloak. “Pleasure doing business,” he grinned, turning back to the trio. “Ready to go?”

“Sure,” Mayes nodded.

Orion strolled back out of the alleyway, bundling up the cloak and putting it into yet another unseen pouch.

“Happy with that?” Mayes chuckled as they left the alley. “Big spender?”

“Yeah, well,” he shrugged, “Gift for someone.”

Icarus leaned in to whisper to Pandora. “Do you ever just feel poor by proximity?”

“Oh yeah,” she replied. “Every day of my life.”

“Yeah, right?”

Mayes continued on the conversation at the front. “Lucky someone.”

“Maybe,” Orion shrugged. “You know, become a gladiator, you can drop that sort of money all the time, so…”

“You should become a gladiator, Icarus,” the other two students chorused.

Orion laughed. “I think you should become a gladiator, Icarus.”

“Feels like that’s what it’s leaning towards, huh,” Icarus chuckled a bit before looking away.

Pandora rubbed her face. “Okay, so where…? I’m losing track, there’s just… here, there, everywhere… Where are we meant to be?”

“The bathhouse,” Icarus replied. “The abandoned bathhouse.”

“Okay,” she sighed.

“Let’s head there.”

Orion looked over to Pandora, concerned. “Are you running out of time?”

She looked to the sky, judging the sun. Afternoon was creeping in, and she was getting antsy.

“You can go,” Icarus assured her.

Pandora shifted from side to side. “I feel bad leaving you guys!”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“We’ve got Orion,” Mayes grinned.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Orion smiled.

Pandora looked the group over. “Be careful without me.”

“Yeah, of course,” Icarus shrugged.

“Or we can pick this up tomorrow,” Orion offered.

“You got your exam tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I can’t come tomorrow,” Pandora apologized.

“And, if we leave it another night, then someone else might get hurt,” Icarus reasoned.

“True,” Orion relented. “I just… I don’t really fancy going straight into this without knowing what this creature is.”

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “So, maybe an afternoon of a little bit of research?” They leaned over to Pandora. “You can revise while we research next to you, for moral support.”

“Okay,” she nodded.

“And that seller mentioned the tavern, right?” Orion recalled.

“Exactly,” Mayes nodded.

“We can go there later tonight, when you’re done your studying, and… or you don’t have to come, the three of us can go.”

Pandora was torn. “I want to, but, like… I feel like I’m gonna be up all night revising for this thing.”

“That’s okay! That’s okay. We can do this.”

“Yeah,” the other two chorused.

“We’ve got this covered.”

“Confidence,” Mayes grinned.

“You guys go find out what this creature is. I will meet you at the Gull’s Gauntlet tavern, later tonight?”

“We’ll see you there,” Mayes agreed.

As Orion started off, Icarus stopped him. “Um… you gonna see Damen?”

He shrugged. “I could?”

“Just… give him this?” Icarus threw the necklace over, and Orion caught it in the air.

“You are going to give that to him yourself!” Pandora chided.

Icarus waved a hand, brushing her off.

Orion examined the necklace. “I mean, the Gull’s Gauntlet is not that far from his place…”

“Invite him,” Mayes declared. “You should give it to him in person.”

Icarus shook his head, stumbling over his words. “No, I mean, it’s… it’s in his hand, now…”

Mayes looked over to Orion. “Pass it back.”

Pandora held her hand out for it, transferring it from Orion back to Icarus.

Orion grinned. “You know, I think something that, sort of- ”

“It’s just a necklace,” Icarus interjected.

“ -handcrafted, should be a personal gift.”

“It’s just a necklace…”

“It’s a very special necklace,” Mayes insisted. “Made with very special materials. It’s cool.”

“It’s made with sabertooth tiger teeth,” Pandora informed Orion.

“And a fleecemane lion,” Mayes whispered dramatically.

“Yeah,” Orion agreed. “You should probably give it to him yourself.”

Icarus didn’t make eye contact. “See you tonight.”

“See you later. I’ll see if he can come.”

Icarus shook his head. “It’s okay…”

“Please,” Mayes encouraged, overlapping the triton’s protests. “Ignore Icarus.”

Orion waved goodbye to them, heading off across the Agora.

Pandora turned to the others. “Okay. Library?”

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed.

  
  


The three of them returned to the school. Pandora gathered her revision material, pulling stacks of books with her, a pile that likely held more than the other two were going to be able to get through in their own investigation. As she set them on a table with a thud, the other two went off to the bestiary section, searching for draconic creatures.

Eventually, they came across a bestiary on monstrosities. Flipping through, they found an image of something that looked similar to the description they were given around the Agora. The long, snakelike, blue scaled body looked somewhat like a wingless dragon. It had six pairs of legs, adding up to twelve in total, and shown in the image rearing up as if some legs were arms. Its open mouth revealed quite a bit of teeth, with black, curled horns coming forwards. The feet themselves each had three toes, with huge black claws on them.

The description in the book claimed that the creature was a behir. They read that the behir was often mistaken for a wingless blue dragon, though surprisingly quick, able to outrun the typical human. They grew up to forty feet long, typically between 1,500 and 1,800 kilos in weight. Their scales were thick and armoured, colored in variations of dark blue, thought lighter underneath. They had long, narrow, crocodilian heads, with mouths full of many sharp teeth. They could breathe lightning, and had a seemingly natural rivalry and hatred for normal dragons. They were mostly active during the day, their diet consisting of medium sized animals such as boar, hunting them down to eat in one mouthful. In winter months, as it was now, they were supposed to be hibernating.

Judging from the description, it seemed reasonable to assume that whatever had been prowling around the Agora was a young version of this creature.

“So there might be something going on, that’s getting them out of hibernation,” Icarus hypothesised.

“It’s concerning that they’re in the city in the first place,” Mayes frowned. Notably, the book stated that while these creatures weren’t as intelligent as dragons, behirs could speak in Common and Draconic. “So, perhaps they’re being ordered by someone? Or we could try talking to them?”

“Yeah, it’s worth a try…”

They read on. Behirs mated in the springtime, producing between one and four eggs. These were typically buried, though there were conflicting reports on how long it took for those eggs to hatch, averaging about eight months. The young were driven out of the den soon after hatching, growing very rapidly after being born only two feet long, with an additional eight feet of growth in length per year. They started life with six legs, sprouting more as they aged.

“That’s why no one knew how many legs it had,” Icarus realized.

“Different stages of baby,” Mayes nodded.

Behirs continued to grow throughout their lifetime, shedding their scales periodically. At ten years old, they were forty feet long. Behirs typically slithered on the ground like a snake, but could put their legs down to run faster if it needed. They typically lived in warm and hilly terrain, making their dens in caves on the sides of high cliffs or hidden in thickets. They usually had a territory of around 400 square miles, which was about the size of Erran itself. They were solitary creatures, though they could be found in mating pairs in the spring. Taking down an adult behir would be a task for at least three dozen fighters.

Icarus read that last bit and sighed. “I mean, we got Orion and his cool cloak…”

“He’s giving that cloak to someone else,” Mayes corrected. “So, we have Orion.”

“Well, I mean…”

“He’s a cool guy.”

“He’s very cool…” Icarus looked over to check on Pandora. “How are you getting on?”

She looked up from her reading. “Hm? What?”

“You doing okay?” Mayes repeated.

“Yeah.”

“Do you need anything?” Icarus offered. “Water? Snacks?”

Pandora looked a bit frazzled, carrying on with the reading. “I’m okay…”

Icarus got her water and snacks anyway.

The three of them did their reading, gathering information on the behir as Pandora studied. After a while, the other two joined her in studying, lost in their thoughts until it grew dark.

Agrippa, the librarian, looked over with concern. “Are you okay dears? Can I get you anything else?”

“Final exams,” Icarus explained, giving an apologetic smile.

“Okay, just letting you know that it’s past dinnertime. It’s 7:00pm.”

“Yeah…”

“Okay…”

Mayes started packing the books away. “Yeah, we should meet Orion soon.”

“Yeah,” Icarus realized. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go, I guess.” He glanced back to Pandora. “Are you…? Do you want to come?”

Pandora seemed stuck.

“Come on,” Icarus encouraged. “You’ve been doing it all day.”

“...I’m gonna take some books with me,” she decided.

“Okay,” Icarus chuckled. “I will lie on them,” he warned. “Again.”

“I will  _ Chill Touch _ you,” she warned back, pointing to the new spell scroll. “Because I can learn how to do that.”

“Not right now!”

“I will learn it over dinner!”

“Maybe I’ll enjoy it,” Icarus defended. “I don’t like the heat.”

“I’ll  _ Firebolt _ you, then!”

Mayes waved them apart. “Okay, enough of that. We should go…”

As they joked, the three of them saw Agrippa tap a sign that read  _ No Magic In The Library. _

They left.

  
  


Paying two silver each for a fast ride across town, they travelled across Erran to meet with Orion. As they did, Icarus pulled out two more sabertooth necklaces, giving them to Pandora and Mayes each.

“Aw, cute!” Pandora smiled.

“Yeah,” Icarus shrugged. “I made them out of the spare ones I took.”

“These are really nice!”

“That’s okay, you can do whatever you want with it.”

“I’m going to wear it,” Pandora declared, maneuvering it around her neck as Mayes tied theirs around their belt.

“I got one too,” Icarus explained.

Pandora chuckled. “And then you’ve got one for Damen….”

“We made that  _ together,” _ Icarus argued, speaking a bit too quickly.

“Sure…”

“You get awfully uptight about that, huh?” Mayes grinned.

Icarus leaned forward, calling up to the cart driver. “How much longer?”

  
  


They slowly headed into the Halfway District, rolling past Damen’s place (which Icarus pointedly did  _ not _ look at) before moving further down the street and around a corner.

They pulled up outside the  _ Gull’s Gauntlet _ taverna. It was a dingy looking bar with a dirty exterior, adorned with a hanging sign depicting a seagull wearing a tankard on one of its wings. Orion, in his disguise, was leaning against the outside.

“Evening,” Mayes waved.

“Hi,” Pandora smiled.

Orion nodded to them. “How you doing?”

“Good,” Mayes replied. “How are you?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “Starting to worry you weren’t coming.”

“Sorry,” Icarus apologized. “We got a bit caught up.”

“So you find out anything else useful?”

“Oh yeah,” Mayes chuckled. They passed on what they had learned about the creature, explaining what they had read.

“Good,” Orion nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I hope there’s not an adult one running around anywhere.”

“I feel like… I feel like they would have noticed? If there was one under the city?”

“Not if it’s just moved in, when it gave birth,” Icarus frowned, giving a shrug. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”

“I really hope this does lead to something to do with the smugglers,” Orion worried. “I’m sorry if it doesn’t.”

“It’s okay. It’d kind of be good to have an evening off, after everything we’ve been through.”

“And it’s just as well we know about it,” Pandora continued. “To hopefully start getting rid of them, or moving them off elsewhere.”

“Exactly,” Mayes agreed.

Icarus frowned, rolling his shoulders. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Orion echoed. “Okay, let’s do it.”

The four of them pushed through the door. The interior was a boxy room, about forty feet in each direction. It was poorly lit, and cramped with more tables than were needed for the very few patrons. Walking in, the atmosphere hit them like a brick wall. Everybody in the tavern looked around at their entrance, not taking their eyes off them as they crossed over towards the bar. The large wine rack in the back corner was severely lacking in stock. There were two human men and a halfling woman playing cards towards the back of the room in one corner, while another person wearing a brown hood was facedown on another table, grumbling and holding a half empty mug of ale.

The bartender was a surly looking half-orc with a few grey hairs and tired, sunken eyes, cleaning off a glass. The people playing cards watched them all the way over to the bar. Icarus watched them back, and they grumbled, turning back to their game.

The bartender frowned at them. “Can I help you?”

“Ale?” Icarus replied.

“Sure. Anything else?”

“Wine,” Mayes followed.

“Just water for me, please,” Pandora mumbled.

The bartender sniffed. “Coming up.” He turned around, pouring out the drinks before sliding them across. “That’ll be four copper.”

They passed over the coins.

Pandora looked down at her water. It did not look very fresh. “Thanks…”

The bartender cut the conversation there, returning to cleaning.

Icarus nodded to the group. “Let’s go get a table.”

They left the bar with their drinks, sitting at one of the many empty tables far from the two occupied corners.

Orion glanced around the bar. “Wow…”

“It’s a warm welcome, huh?” Mayes mumbled.

The gladiator leaned back. “Damen’s neighborhood is really garbage, huh?”

“Is he coming, by the way?” Pandora wondered.

“Uh, no, but I told him we’d stop in after.”

“Yeah, we should,” Mayes agreed.

“Okay, so… What do you want to do?”

Icarus frowned. “Gotta find a place to get this information out, huh? Not that anyone here looks too welcoming...”

“I don’t mind going up and playing cards with those people,” Mayes offered.

“...Sure.”

“You sure?” Pandora worried.

“I mean, it’s a friendly enough opener,” they shrugged.

“And we need information,” Icarus nodded. “So…”

“Yeah. Maybe a couple of us can join that? The game? I don’t know, it’s worth talking to people...”

“No, I agree. I think that’s a good idea.”

Mayes took a sip of wine. It was pretty cheap. It wasn’t the most disgusting wine they had ever tasted, but it had been only two copper.

They headed over to the other table, shooting back a glance at the rest of their group, silently asking if anyone wanted to join. Nobody did.

The three strangers looked up at Mayes as they approached.

“Hey,” they nodded. “Room for one more?”

One of the humans rolled their shoulders. “Sure.”

“Cool. Appreciate it. Mayes.”

“Nice to meet you. Faidon.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

Faidon started dealing them in. Mayes played a couple of rounds with them before the other man squinted at them. “Haven’t seen you here before.”

“Haven’t been here before,” Mayes replied. “Just… Come into possession of some things recently.”

“What sort of things?”

“...A creature that was… unusual. Got some bits, teeth… Heard there’s places around these parts where… you know, people can… deal with those sorts of things.”

The human dealt another hand. “Have you now?”

  
  


Back at the other table, Pandora found herself slightly dazed from an afternoon of revision, a bit uneasy in the room as she watched Mayes, trying not to look suspicious. As she looked around, she noticed the person at the other table mumbling to themselves.

Icarus, looking carefully around, noticed something behind the wine rack in the corner. There was clearly another door there, hidden from view. Nudging Pandora, he pointed it out. Pandora nudged him back, gesturing over to the mumbling man.

  
  


Mayes won a round of cards. The others took the cards back, shuffling them and dealing them out carefully. They were staring to glance suspiciously over to Icarus and the others.

Mayes began to absentmindedly draw out the thieves’ cant symbol for  _ friend _ on the table, moving their fingers to trace it out as they waited for their next turn. After a minute, the halfling began moving her hand, making the same mark.

Glancing in her direction, Mayes made the symbol for  _ help _ and  _ information. _

The woman looked up at the other two men. “Why don’t we play a little game? Carvus, Faidon? Some information for our friend here. We can help them out, if they win some more card games? Win a few more rounds?”

“Okay,” Mayes nodded. “You’re on.”

Carvus, the bigger of the two men, sat back. “Fine. One win, one question.”

They began to play. The strangers watched Mayes carefully to make sure they weren’t cheating, but Mayes played a fair game, and won.

Faidon leaned back. “Fair is fair, you can ask a question.”

At the other table, Icarus leaned over to Pandora. “Is there any way you can message Mayes about the door?”

Pandora leaned into her hands, whispering the message.  _ “There’s a hidden door behind the wine rack, behind the bar.” _

Mayes pretended to think about their question. “Hmm… Where’s the hidden door go?”

Faidon chuckled. “Downstairs into Kondou’s place.”

“I’m assuming that’s where you can exchange parts...”

“We said one question, one win,” the man grinned, dealing another hand.

“Wasn’t a question, just an assumption.”

“You still playing?”

“I’m still playing.”

As they played, Mayes looked over to the door. Through the holes in the wine rack, something was written in thieves’ cant on the door.  _ Password before entry. _

Carvus won the next round. “You still willing to play?”

“Yes.”

“Okay…” he took out a pouch of money, flicking a gold onto the table.

“Raising the stakes, huh?” Mayes put a gold down.

“Might as well. For a friend.”

Four gold coins were placed in the center of the table.

  
  


Orion leaned over to the others. “Should we do something? Or do something else, take advantage of this time? I don’t know…”

“I could go see what that guy’s mumbling,” Icarus offered.

“What, without drawing any attention?” Pandora whispered frantically.

“Eh, they seem busy…” Icarus stood quietly, heading over to the other table. The card players were engaged, and he spotted gold on the table. “Oh, no…”

He made his way over to the other table. The mumbling man wore a brown hood, head hanging down as he clutched a near empty glass. As Icarus approached, it seemed most of the mumbling was incoherent, but he was definitely slurring out something with the word  _ dog. _

“Can’t remember… fucking… what was it… assholes… something dog…” He was definitely trying to remember something. Icarus gave him a nudge, and the man immediately turned. “Who the hell are you?”

“Icarus,” the triton smiled.

“Eggarus…”

“Eh, close enough.”

“Whaddaya want, Eggarus?”

“I was just coming to join you. You look all on your lonesome, over here,” he smiled.

The man tapped his glass before drinking some more. His face was a bit bruised, as if he had been beat up recently.

Icarus slid his glass toward the man, and his eyes lit up, blurrily reaching for the other ale. “Thanks, friend…”

“No worries. About that dog, have you seen a dog around here?”

“Dog?” the man blinked. “Probably a dog, downstairs…”

“Downstairs? Through the door?”

“…Something, dog. Fucking… password…”

Pandora noticed the bartender watching Icarus and the drunken man very carefully. Leaning into her hands again, she messaged Icarus.  _ “Be careful, you’re being watched.” _

“I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,” Icarus replied to the mumbling man, doubling his words as a response to Pandora.

“Nothing to worry about, Eggarus,” the man mumbled back.

  
  


Mayes assessed the card players. They hadn’t noticed Icarus moving, but they seemed a bit more relaxed after a few rounds. Mayes decided to cheat.

One of them nearly caught them, but Mayes managed to keep a straight face. It was very close, with Mayes almost drawn with the halfling as the round finished.

“Good going,” the halfling approved. “Gold is yours,” she pushed the coins over. “And I think that’s another question, Carvus?”

Carvus grunted. “Ask away. Fair is fair.”

Mayes leaned forwards. “What’s the password? To the door?”

Carvus chuckled. “...Hair of the dog.”

“Appreciate it, thank you. I’ll leave you guys to your game. Nothing untoward, swear it.”

The halfling leaned back with a nod. “Yeah, we trust you.”

Mayes gave her a wink, and returned to their table as the others watched them, going back to their card game. Fidon moaned a bit about the lost gold until Carvus smacked him. “Oh, forget about it. It’s not that important.”

Mayes flashed Icarus a thumbs up, sitting back with Pandora and Orion.

“All good?” Orion prompted.

“Well, I’ve got the password to get us downstairs, so.”

“Great, great work!”

“Thanks.”

“However, I think our friend over there at the bar is watching us carefully.”

“It’s alright.”

Icarus left the drunken man, heading back to the group. The half-orc stared at him the whole time, and Icarus gave him a friendly wave. He gave a less friendly wave back.

Icarus slid into his seat. “So what’s the plan here?” he mumbled.

“Well I’ve got the password,” Mayes repeated. “So I guess we just… go downstairs.”

“What, we have to sneak past this guy?” Pandora worried.

“I’ve got a plan,” Icarus assured her, rolling his shoulders to stand. “Who wants another drink?”

“You sure you want to do this right now?” Orion stopped him. “You haven’t got your armour with you…”

“We’ve got the information,” Mayes agreed. “We can come back tomorrow.”

Icarus paused for a moment, and then relented. “Yeah, you’re right. I got a bit… ahead of myself.”

“I know this is frustrating,” Orion apologized. “But…”

“No, it’s fine,” Mayes shrugged.

Icarus shook himself. “Yeah, no, you’re right.”

“Okay,” Orion nodded. “We can finish up on our drinks and… be on our way?”

“Yeah, let’s do that. Let’s try to keep the bartender on our side, I’ll drop him a silver or something as we go past.”

“Great.”

The four of them stood, passing the half-orc a silver. The bartender continued to watch them silently, taking their dirty glasses and staring at them all the way to the sink.

  
  


The four of them stepped out of the tavern and back into the street. The tense atmosphere dropped away immediately as they took a breath back outside.

“Damn,” Orion chuckled.

Icarus sighed. “That was a place…”

“It sure was,” Pandora frowned.

“I won gold at cards,” Mayes announced.

Orion gave an approving nod. “Good going.”

“Sick,” Icarus grinned.

Pandora glanced over. “Good for you.”

“Hang on…” Mayes passed out the coins, giving them a gold each.

“No, that’s your winnings!” Pandora protested.

Mayes gave her a coin anyway.

“No, you paid for my spell scroll!”

Mayes gave her a look that said  _ I’m going to slip it in your pocket if you don’t let me, _ and she relented.

They tried to give a coin to Orion as well, but the gladiator stepped back with a grin. “Don’t you come near me.”

Mayes chuckled, and relented.

“Right,” Orion nodded, “Shall we go have a much more relaxed drink at Damen’s, and unwind? Discuss what you found out?”

“Sure,” Icarus agreed. “Yeah.”

“Okay. It’s just around the corner.”

“This has been a tense few days…”

“It really has!” Pandora agreed. “I need such a massage, where is Sasu right now?”

Mayes smiled. “She’ll be here in… a while.”

Orion glanced back as they walked. “Who’s that?”

“Mayes’ girlfriend,” Icarus explained.

“Oh!”

“That Mayes invited to the dance,” Icarus grinned. “That we’ve got at the end of the school year.”

“That’s cute.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Thank you,” Mayes grinned. “She’s cute.”

“She is very cute,” Pandora and Icarus chuckled, giving Mayes a look.

“...Okay,” Orion gestured them along. “Before this gets weird…”

“To Damen’s place,” Pandora agreed.

  
  


Orion led the trio back to Damen’s insula apartment building, bringing them through the gate and back up the stairs before knocking at the door as his disguise dropped away. There was grumbling inside and heavy shifting around before Damen opened the door with obvious bedhead, despite the fact that it was almost 10:00pm by now. This time, he was not undressed.

“Hi,” Pandora waved.

“Evening,” Mayes greeted.

Damen nodded to them. “Oh, my favorite people. Come on in.”

“How are you feeling?” Pandora asked.

“I’m okay.”

“Healing up?” Mayes checked.

“Getting there. Still gonna be awhile, but…”

“Yeah, you should take some time for yourself,” Pandora advised.

Damen frowned. “Time is money. Please, inside, sit down… I see Orion has volunteered my place to you as a secret hideout for the evening.”

“It’s not like that…”

“Well, we were just at the Gull’s Gauntlet,” Icarus explained. “And I think that we barely escaped with our heads.”

“It’s fine,” Mayes grinned.

Damen’s face grew serious. “What were you doing there?”

“Trying to get some information,” Icarus explained.

“Yeah,” Mayes shrugged.

“Dodgy place,” Damen warned.

“Yeah, tell us about it,” Icarus chuckled.

“Yeah… don’t go messing around with places like that.”

“No no, it’s cool,” Mayes assured him.

“They’re fine,” Orion flopped down on Damen’s bed, getting comfortable with his hands behind his head. “I was with them.”

“Besides, we needed to do it,” Icarus shrugged. “It’s not any more dangerous than any of the other stuff we’ve done.”

“True,” Pandora frowned.

“...True,” Damen echoed.

“Yeah,” Mayes sighed. “It’s been a tense time what with… everything that’s been going on.”

“Do you want some… I don’t know, wine? Tea, or something?”

“Wine, please.”

“Tea please,” Pandora followed.

Damen headed into the kitchen.

Orion lounged on the bed. “So… What did you find out?”

“It’s… Kondou’s place? Is what’s underneath the bar.”

“Kondou’s place…” Orion mused.

All three of them heard something clatter in the kitchen.

“Everything okay?” Icarus worried.

“Yeah, it’s fine!” Damen called back.

Pandora went into the kitchen. “Do you need some help?”

“It’s fine…” he was picking up where he had spilled some tea. Pandora helped him clean it up. “Thanks.”

“Let me do it,” she urged. “You go rest.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah!”

“Thank you…” Damen returned to the main room, looking a bit grumbly.

Orion shrugged. “I don’t know the name.”

“No, me neither,” Icarus replied.

“But,” Mayes continued, “The halfling that I was playing cards with, she seems friendly, and managed to strike up a deal where… if I won a round, I got to ask a question. So I know the password to get down there now.”

“Okay. That’s great.”

“Whatever  _ down there _ is, right?” Orion grinned.

“Yeah, I tried to see if they would imply if it was what we think it was,” Mayes explained, “But they weren’t really buying it.”

Icarus nodded. “So, if it is what we think it is…”

“If it is what we hope it is,” Orion corrected, “Some kind of base…”

“That still doesn’t quite line up with the behir.”

“Could have escaped from there,” Orion suggested.

“Exactly,” Mayes agreed. “And they might have information, maybe they were selling eggs, or…”

“It takes eight months for them to hatch, right?” Icarus recalled. “And they mate in the spring, which gives them…”

“So it would be around now,” Pandora confirmed.

“Yeah.”

“So if they had the eggs to sell,” Mayes theorized, “But then the eggs hatched and they weren’t expecting it…”

“Maybe. How far away is the bathhouse from here? The abandoned one?”

“They said the Aerini district,” Orion answered. “That’s like, one district over?”

“Okay, that tracks.”

“Because if they’re travelling underground,” Mayes concluded, “They might have fled from the market.”

“Okay…”

“Bathhouses have an underground,” Orion realized. “Right?”

“For the water,” Icarus confirmed.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, so... “ he rubbed his forehead. “We’re gonna try to take down this underground… animal ring? Run by Kondou? Or are we gonna try and take down these huge creatures?”

“They’re only doing what’s coming naturally to them,” Pandora reasoned.

“I know, but they’re endangering people.”

“I know. We could relocate them, ideally.”

“They can speak Common…”

“We can just talk to them,” Mayes nodded. “But more importantly, we need to find out if these poachers have anything to do with it. And, you know, an underground animal selling ring seems like a pretty good lead for that.”

“Yeah,” Orion agreed. “See if they’re the same people, and then, if they’re the same people, you have the information you need.”

“And then go and deal with the creatures, and just make sure that nothing dangerous will happen.”

“Yeah, we can do that,” Icarus replied. “How are we gonna get in there…”

“Someone distracts the barkeeper?” Pandora suggested. “He was pretty vigilant.”

“I think I can do that,” Icarus grinned.

“I mean, Mayes is pretty good at sneaking, but I don’t know if I’d want you to go down on your own.”

“No.”

“I mean, surely if we just say the password to the barkeeper, we can get through,” Mayes reasoned. “That’s the whole point of it, right?”

“Potentially… I don’t know, is it worth a try?”

“It’s a pretty big risk,” Pandora worried.

“If their bar is the front for it,” Mayes shrugged matter-of-factly, “Then they’re in on it. Right?”

“I don’t know!” Icarus laughed. “I’ve never done anything illegal before!”

“And if not, I can write a little note in the…” Mayes frowned, putting up begrudging air quotes for the next word,  _ “Criminal _ language, and see how they respond to it.”

“That might even be worth more,” Orion considered.

Icarus cleared his throat. “I hate this,” he declared, “But I need you guys to keep this from Lorakai as well.” He sighed, rubbing his face. “I hate keeping things from him…”

“In the meantime,” Damen continued, “There’s… what, a behir hatchling running around the city?”

“Multiple,” the students chorused.

Orion groaned. “I can’t, in my right mind, leave that.”

“No.”

“Well,  _ you,” _ Orion pointed over to the other tiefling, “Have an exam in the morning. So...”

“I know,” Pandora moaned. It was almost 11:00pm, and she was getting very antsy.

“We can go back,” Icarus assured her.

“Yeah, it’s getting really late. I need to sleep.”

“Sure.”

“So do I,” Damen added.

Icarus smiled. “Sure.”

“Well, before we leave,” Mayes stopped the triton. “Icarus…?”

Icarus paused a moment, and then tossed the necklace over.

Damen sat up from where he had flopped on the bed. “What’s this?”

“Uh, it’s just a necklace,” Icarus shrugged.

“There was this beautiful lion,” Mayes explained, “Way bigger than it normally should be. It’s part of its mane.”

“And one of its teeth,” Pandora added.

Icarus cleared his throat, stumbling over his words as he corrected her. “It was a tooth from one of the saber, um, saber…”

“Saber tooth cats,” Mayes finished.

Damen raised a brow. “For me?”

“Yeah,” Icarus admitted.

He nodded. “That’s pretty cool. Thanks.”

“That’s okay.”

He scratched his head, looking a bit confused. “Don’t know what I did to deserve this, but…”

“It’s kind of practical, too. Just… spend some time with it.”

“Alright,” he nodded.

“Sure.”

“You’re a cool guy, Damen,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah, you guys are alright,” he grinned. “I think we’re gonna keep running into each other, so…”

“Yeah. Strange circumstance to make friends through, but, glad it happened.”

“...Any more weird dreams?”

“No,” Icarus replied. “Haven’t seen any more red strings either, since the arena.”

“Maybe you solved it?”

“Yeah.”

Damen didn’t look hopeful.

“Either way,” Icarus stood, “We will get out of your hair.”

“Sure. If you guys need to come back here, you’re doing dodgy shit down at the  _ Gull’s Gauntlet _ that I can’t talk you out of, then… you can always come here.”

“Thanks. Probably gonna try and do some research on this Kondou person. We can do that tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “Try and figure out who they are.”

“We got this,” Icarus smiled.

“Yeah.”

Damen gave a nod. “Cool. I’ll see you around, kids.”

“Cool,” Icarus echoed. “See you around.”

“See you,” Pandora followed.

“Let’s try and get a taxi back.”

“Sleep well,” Mayes waved.

Orion said goodbye at the door. “I live like, way in the other direction, so I’m probably just gonna crash here. But, if you need me, you can message me?”

“Yeah,” Pandora agreed.

“Sounds good,” Icarus smiled.

“Good. I’m glad this seems to be going somewhere. Please don’t get yourselves killed,” he warned.

“Thank you for your help on this.”

“Yeah, I don’t know if I helped that much, but…”

“No, you did.”

“You did,” Mayes agreed.

“Thanks.”

Orion smiled. “See you soon then. Keep me updated.”

“Will do.”

“Good luck on your exam.”

“Thanks,” Pandora gave a weak smile, and went in for a hug.

He hugged back, squeezing her a bit this time. “You’re gonna do great. I know you’re gonna do great.”

“Wish I knew that.”

“Well, let some other people do the knowing for you. You just concentrate on the actual exam.”

“Yeah…” she looked off to where Icarus and Mayes were smiling at her. “Yeah.”

Orion grinned, ruffling her hair slightly.

“Hey! ...See you soon.”

“See you soon.”

Orion blew the three of them an exaggerated kiss goodbye as the trio chuckled, waving back.

“Goodnight!” Mayes laughed.

“Get out of here!”

  
  


After walking a couple of blocks, they were able to secure a taxi back. Once again, they handed over two silver each. The three of them clambered onto the cart, getting back across the city in about forty minutes. It was nearly midnight as the three of them parted ways, heading back to their separate dorm rooms.

They slept, thankfully, dreamlessly.

Pandora woke to the sun through her open curtain. Her exam was starting in an hour and a half.

  
  



	16. The Smuggler's Den, Episode Sixteen

Icarus went for his usual run as Mayes went about their morning business. The three of them happened upon each other in the central courtyard.

Icarus jogged over to Pandora. “Hi!”

“Hi…” she whimpered.

Mayes gave her a knowing look. “How’s it going?”

“You’ve got this,” Icarus encouraged. “You’re gonna be great.”

Pandora looked very frazzled and jittery, quite visibly anxious.

Icarus put an arm around her shoulder. “Come on. Take a breath in… No, that was out too quickly, you need to take it in and then hold it. Breathe in… and out. You are going to do so good. I know it.”

Pandora was so anxious she could barely speak. As the three of them stood around, Alexander crossed the courtyard. “Pandora!”

Pandora squeaked. “Hi!”

“I hoped I would catch you before your exam.”

“Mhm!”

“How are you feeling?”

Pandora swallowed hard. “I’m fine!”

Alexander looked her up and down. “You don’t sound fine. Do you still have that potion?”

“I did kind of sniff it a bit this morning,” she admitted. “I was trying to decide whether to take it or not…”

Alexander put a hand on her shoulder. “I think, perhaps, now might be a good time.”

“Okay…” she pulled it out of her bag, taking off the cork to sniff it a bit again.

“Sniffing it isn’t going to do anything,” he gently reminded her.

“Okay… okay okay okay okay okay…” she put it back in her bag. Through her heavy breathing, her voice was almost a whisper. “I’ll take it right before. Can’t take it now.”

“Okay. Do you have everything you need?”

“I think so.”

“This one is a practical.”

“I know. Or maybe, maybe… Do I have…? Oh no, did I leave it…?” she rifled through her bag to check everything. “I have packed my stuff and repacked it, like, four times already!”

“I’m sure you’ve got everything you need,” Icarus grinned.

“Come on,” Alexander coaxed. “Let’s go to the examination room, and we can check it there. If you don’t mind, you two…?”

“No no, go for it.”

“Pandora will get a lunch break at two.”

“At two, okay,” Icarus nodded. “You’ve got this.”

“I’d wish you luck, but you don’t need it,” Mayes grinned.

Pandora stared at them with pleading eyes. “I think I do!”

“A little bit extra, then,” Icarus smiled. “Good luck.”

Pandora half-stuttered out a  _ good luck _ in return, walking away with Alexander.

“We’ll see you later!” Icarus called.

Alexander gently put a hand on Pandora’s back, guiding her away. As he did, the other two heard him whisper his own words of encouragement.  _ “You’ve got this, Firefly.” _

The two of them were left in the quad. Mayes raised their eyebrows for a moment, and then turned Icarus away. “That’s none of our business.”

“Come on,” Icarus agreed. “Let’s…”

“Let’s go… yeah.”

They meandered across the grass. “So where do you want to start?”

“I feel like, daytime, it’s probably better if we try and go towards the, um…”

“The baths?”

“Yeah, the baths.”

“Okay.”

“Not the kind of place I would wanna be at dark, and I feel like… at night, the other place is gonna be a bit more active.”

“And we can’t see shit in the dark anyway, so,” Icarus chuckled.

“No.”

“Okay, let’s head that way.”

The two of them headed out of the school and back towards the center of the city, to the Agora.

  
  


Alexander led Pandora to the examination room. Waiting outside, he stopped her there. “Let’s check you have everything you need.”

Pandora whimpered. Alexander helped her go through her things, making sure she had everything before he gave her a pat on the shoulder. “You’re going to do brilliantly, okay?”

“If this goes wrong… This could be so dangerous, if this goes wrong…”

“So could everything in that room. You’re not taking the examination alone. There are people watching to make sure. We understand that an advanced alchemy exam is not going to be… the safest. Don’t worry.”

She fidgeted in place, trying not to hyperventilate.

“Look me in the eye.”

Pandora squeaked, looking up at him.

“Tell me that you have successfully cast this spell before,” Alexander smiled softly, trying to console her.

Pandora gulped, laughing desperately to herself. “You know what’s really funny? I haven’t!”

“...Oh,” Alexander blinked, his face changing slightly. “You’re trying something different? You’ve changed what you’re doing?”

“This is a really stupid idea, isn’t it! I really shouldn’t do this, this is like, really reckless, really dangerous, and… I just, I read about it, and I figured I may be able to get extra points if like, I put something really advanced and really volatile in there, but… Now that I’m thinking about it I should have practiced it, I haven’t done it yet!”

Alexander grinned. “I think that’s a brilliant idea. Go for it. I’ll be disappointed if you don’t.” He squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll see you on your lunch break.”

“...Okay!” she whispered.

She chugged her comfort potion, and instantly, she felt a spread of warmth and calm coursing through her body, absorbing all of the anxious, panicked energy until she felt completely focused.

She took a breath. “Okay. I can do this.”

Pandora entered a large room full of long, wooden desks. Each wall bore racks and racks of ingredients, components, dozens of jars of different materials, and plenty of alchemic equipment. There were several examiners standing throughout the room on standby if something went wrong, with one at the head of the room to watch over the entire exam.

She was asked to find a place to sit and work. The exam would last eight hours, including the two hour lunch break.

She found a spot at one of the long desks near a student wearing a Domus Imperatoria uniform. He had albino skin, and white hair long on top and shaved down the side, pushed back casually with a few strands falling in front of his face. He had large red eyes, high cheekbones, and some effeminate features over a strong, muscular body. He seemed completely stoic, an emotionless look on his face as he stared down at his work, which was laid out very carefully in front of him.

He glanced over at Pandora. She didn’t know him personally, but she knew his name was Veltash. He gave her a curt nod before looking back down at his work. It wasn’t showing on his face, but Pandora got the impression that he was quite nervous.

“Morning,” she greeted.

“Morning.”

“You ready?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Are you?”

“I think so.”

“Good.”

“Well, good luck.”

“...Good luck to you.”

Pandora started getting her stuff out. He stood there silently, slightly awkward.

  
  


Icarus and Mayes made their way back through the city center. As they walked through the Agora, they saw a town herald on the stone stage in the center. They were chiming their bell, calling out across the square and announcing the news that the Armiger of Erran was dead. Some passersby didn’t pay much attention, while others stopped in shock, talking amongst themselves. The herald explained that the council was to meet soon to discuss a replacement for his position.

“Do you know how they select people around here?” Icarus wondered.

Mayes wasn’t native to Erran, but they had studied the local history. Selecting the Armiger was largely a private decision amongst the councilors of Erran. There could be any number of candidates, and each councilor could put forth any candidates they wanted to. The councilors would then debate until they came to a conclusion. There were three High Councilors in Erran who had the final say on decisions, in order to make sure there was a decisive vote. “I guess that means they’ll have to start looking for a candidate soon.”

“Yeah,” Icarus frowned. “Lex’s dad is on the high council, so he’ll be making that choice.”

“I guess so.”

“And you know what? After meeting him, I don’t trust that decision.”

“He did seem like kind of a dick, huh?”

“Yeah. And Lex did not wanna be there,” he sighed, looking off in thought. “Alright, we should find this bathhouse.”

“Yeah.”

As they started moving forwards again, they saw a flash of light from down a side street, followed by a cry of pain.

Icarus turned. “I think our target might have found us.”

The two of them started moving that way. As they ran over, they saw a couple of adults crowded around a small half-elf boy on the ground. He was very short, looking about only five years old, with brown hair and bright blue eyes. He was crying crocodile tears as what they assumed was a parent bandaged up his cheek. The boy wore a loose toga tied at the waist with a piece of rope and little brown sandals, clutching a wooden figurine.

“Is everything okay?” Icarus called.

The parents looked over, breathless. “There was a… There was a creature!”

“Blue creature?”

“Mhm!”

“Which way did it go?”

“Which way did it go, honey?”

The child looked up. Noticing the strangers, he immediately stepped away, crying louder.

“Hey, it’s okay!” Icarus assured the boy, crouching down. He pointed at the doll. “Who’s this?”

The boy lifted it up. It was a figure of Damen.

“Oh, Damen huh?”

“Mhm…”

“Yeah, he’s our friend, you know?”

The boy sniffed heavily. “Really?”

“Yeah. He doesn’t cry when he gets hurt,” Icarus pressed, desperate to quickly quiet the kid. “He’s real strong. Do you think you can be strong like Damen?”

“...Mhm,” the boy sucked it up, trying to look brave.

“Oh wow, look at you!” Icarus encouraged.

“You know the gladiators?”

“We do. We went out with Orion yesterday.”

The boy gasped.

“Yeah, you know him?”

The other parent leaned down. “Felix is crazy about the gladiators. Isn’t this exciting?”

“Mhm!” Felix stood, brushing his knees off, the tears completely forgotten. There was a little spark of burn on his face where the bandage was.

“Do you want me to have a look at that?” Icarus offered.

“...Yeah…?” he sniffled.

Icarus tilted his head, examining the injury. “Oh, a big strong boy like you, you’ll be fine.” He sent out a healing spell, and the lightning burn retracted from the boy’s face. It didn’t seem too serious, and Icarus had healed a significant amount of the damage. “See? How’s that?”

The boy wiped his eyes. “That’s better.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Mhm.”

“You know, we’re kind of on business for our gladiator friends, investigating this creature that you may have seen,” Mayes began.

The boy beamed. “Yeah?”

“Can you tell us which way it went? That would be really helpful.”

“Hmm… I saw it go down the road,” the boy pointed a finger, stretching out his full arm. “And… it was running away, really really fast.”

“Really fast?” Icarus grinned.

“Yeah.”

“Oh no…”

“Mhm. Like a chariot race.”

“Like a chariot race? It can’t have been faster than Orion…”

“Maybe faster than Orion,” the boy nodded.

Icarus gasped. “No way… No way! Yeah?”

“Mhm!”

“Okay,” he grinned.

“Are you gladiators?”

“Not yet.”

Mayes nudged the triton. “He will be someday.”

“Are you gonna be gladiators?” Felix beamed.

“Maybe,” Icarus grinned.

“I’m gonna be a gladiator too.”

“Yeah? Then I’ll see you there.”

“Yeah! I’m gonna be big and strong, I’m never gonna cry!”

“...No,” Icarus nodded, regretting his earlier advice. “But… you can, if you really need to…”

“It went that way!” he pointed again.

“That way?”

“Mhm!”

Icarus gave the boy a salute. “Thank you!”

“Thank you!”

“We’re gonna go take care of that.”

Felix looked back at his doll. “Say bye, Damianos!”

The doll waved.

Icarus chuckled, and gave him a little fist bump, which Felix happily returned. Mayes was already walking down the alley.

Icarus followed them, turning to wave goodbye to the child. As he walked away, Icarus heard the boy speak to his parents again. “Momma, Poppa, that was the coolest people I ever met! One day, can I have fins?”

Reaching the other end of the alleyway, Icarus and Mayes looked around into the street. It wasn’t particularly busy, though there were a number of carts drawn by horses and oxen. A dart of blue went under one of the carts. They knew from their reading that behirs could climb onto any surface, and the baby behir was now hooked underneath the cart. A woman in a rich red palla motioned to her driver, and the cart started pulling away.

Icarus eyed the other carts. “Should we rent one, or...? Borrow one…?”

Mayes looked over to a few of the empty carts. “Let’s borrow.”

“Okay...”

The two of them shared a look.

_ “I’m a man of God, I can’t do this,” _ Icarus’s eyes pleaded. “ _ … But you should.” _

“ _ For the greater good,” _ Mayes’ eyes agreed.

Mayes slid stealthily into the driver’s seat before Icarus climbed on as a passenger. A few people looked up from the other carts, but they didn’t seem suspicious, only a bit annoyed that someone had beaten them to the ride.

Icarus pretended to give Mayes two silver, and Mayes flicked the reins.

The ox stumbled forward a single step before stopping.

“...Let me just slide in the front with you, if you want to go in the back real quick,” Icarus whispered, looking away innocently.

“Sure…”

The pair of them scrambled over the seats, swapping places. Neither of them had ever driven a cart before, but Icarus figured it couldn’t be that different from encouraging a horse. Pulling tight on one side, he convinced the ox out from the other carts, and down the street.

They could see ahead of them, quite a distance off, the bright red of the passenger woman’s palla. It was going steadily, and there wasn’t much traffic. The ox moved along a bit faster than the cart they were chasing. The other cart turned a corner, and Icarus managed to pull the reins hard on one side to get the ox to follow down the rather sharp turn. To Icarus’s merit, the cart didn’t even tip.

They were in hot pursuit.

  
  


Meanwhile, Pandora was sitting in her classroom. The examiner explained to her that over the course of her exam, she would be expected to make her final alchemic formula, and provide written analysis of its properties, how it was to be safely used, and how it was made. She could submit multiple vials of the potion or poison, but all of them had to be identical. She was also allowed to discuss with other students, but had to disclose what had been discussed in her written work.

She got started. Beside her, Veltash got out many different components. Glancing over as she prepared her own items, she was able to determine fairly quickly that he was making some kind of poison.

“Looks interesting,” she commented.

“You think so?”

“Mhm. Quite an art, to make poison.”

“Hopefully a poison that wouldn’t kill, that’s the intention.”

“What’s it meant to do?”

“Put people asleep. But… not for awhile? It’s supposed to be a poison you could drink, and not realize you’ve drunk for eight hours.”

“That’s really interesting. Is it like, a slow release thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you tested it at all? Like, practiced?”

“...It hasn’t really gone right, in the practices. What about you?”

“Mine is kind of experimental,” she admitted. “I’m making an arcane explosive. So like, you can infuse a spell into a vial, and it will hold the spell, and then you can throw it whenever you need to use it.”

“That’s amazing!”

“So it means that non magic users can use them as well.”

“Have you practiced that?”

“Kind of, but like, not the spell that I’m going to put in it. So it’s… it's only one that I read about fairly recently.”

“That’s such a good idea,” Veltash grinned. “I mean, I don’t have an ounce of magic in my body, I’d love to be able to use that.”

“Well, that’s the idea. And you can put really anything in it. Well, supposedly, if the theory holds up.”

“Well, if you need help with anything… I mean, I’m not gonna be any good with the spells, but, um… yeah.”

“Yeah. I don’t know how much we’re allowed to help each other in this, but, like… maybe later on, and if it all works out, maybe I can give you one?”

“That would be cool! If this works, take one of these. We can swap.”

“Thanks, that sounds good.”

He went back to his work quietly, and Pandora did the same. The first hour of her exam went well.

  
  


Across the town, Icarus and Mayes were cruising down another wide road. Icarus was pushing the ox to its limit as Mayes held onto the cart for dear life. The ox was practically stampeding down the street. The other cart was not going nearly as fast, and they were catching up very, very quickly.

As they sped up, Icarus realized he was coming in pretty close, until another cart swooped in from a side street. Icarus managed to swerve their cart around it just in time. Mayes saw the other driver shaking their fist as they went past, and Mayes returned with a rather rude gesture of their own.

Finally, they caught up completely along the other cart. As the cart with the woman in red pulled to a stop, Icarus realized the cart was still moving with the momentum even as he slowed the ox down. The cart rolled into the ox’s butt, and the animal grumbled, stamping its foot a bit.

Icarus gave it a pat as they stopped. “Sorry.”

The other driver was helping the woman out of the cart. As she stepped down, her red robes blew to the side in the wind around her feet, and the blue shape dropped off the cart before scuttling further up the street.

They chased after the behir hatchling, the creature’s ten legs scuttling forwards before it lifted the legs and began to slither like a snake across the ground. The behir moved to the side, and as someone stepped out of a shop, the creature slipped right inside.

Icarus and Mayes ran into  _ Sevini’s Soaps, _ pushing open the door. There was immediate panic inside the store as the eight foot long creature weaved in and out between tables, knocking them over. A staff member climbed up onto the counter, looking down and shouting.

“Hey!” Mayes called. “Behir!”

Icarus tried to grab it, scrabbling between the displays and wrestling with its tail. The behir slid out from his hands, escaping.

“We know you speak Common!” Mayes argued.

The behir pushed through a back door behind the counter and disappeared.

“Get back here!” Icarus yelled.

As they ran after, the shopkeeper stopped them. “Hey, hey! What is going on?”

“We’re getting the thing!” Mayes explained.

The shopkeeper looked torn for a moment, and then let them pass. “Fine! Hurry up!”

“Thank you!”

As the pair pushed through to the back door, they saw footprints of soap all across the flagstone floor. Following the prints down a corridor in the back to a large storeroom full of floor to ceiling shelves, they heard something rattling as if it had been knocked over, but they didn’t see the behir anywhere.

“We’re just here to talk,” Icarus reasoned. “You need to stop causing such a ruckus.”

They moved around the room quietly as possible, trying not to alert it as they looked for flashes of blue. For a moment, they thought they had it, but it was just a display of fancy soaps. Then, they realized the rattling they had heard was a grate flopping open at the back.

The shopkeeper carefully followed in. “Is it… is it gone?”

“Where does the grate go?” Mayes asked.

“One of the tunnels under the city. It goes down to the drains.”

Icarus looked down. “Should we go in?”

“Yeah,” Mayes nodded.

“You can probably access from the street behind,” the shopkeeper offered. “Get down there. They go almost down to the trench.”

The trench led from the harbour to the east city gates.

“Okay, thank you,” Icarus replied. He stuck his face down by the grate. While it was big enough for the creature, it was quite flat, leading almost vertically downwards.

“Is that thing yours?” the shopkeeper continued.

“No,” the pair chorused.

“What are you doing, then?”

“Trying to stop it,” Icarus repeated.

“Look at my shop!”

“Yeah, we’re trying to stop it!” Mayes argued.

“...Fine, out!” they opened a back door in the storeroom, gesturing for them to leave.

Icarus put up his hands. “Okay.”

Mayes frowned, giving the owner a bit of a look. “Geez… Alright, goodbye…”

The owner slammed the door after them.

“...Wow.”

“Rude,” Icarus agreed. “I mean, I once bit one of her soaps when I was like, 19, but everyone does that. They look like food!”

“Did you think it was cheese?”

“It looks like food! Everyone’s done it!”

Mayes sighed and gave Icarus a pat on the head before heading to the grate.

  
  


Pandora, blissfully unaware that any of this was going on, made it through the next two hours of her exam without difficulty. She had a ton of notes written up beside her, with all of the components put together for the spell she was going to attach.

Veltash leaned on the desk beside her. He had been pushing his hair furiously back through the exam, causing it to grow messier and messier. He let out a long sigh.

“You okay?” Pandora checked.

“Are you?”

Pandora waved her hand back and forth with a shrug.

“...Yeah,” he agreed. “I just… this is the point where I normally go wrong.”

“You’ve got to keep going,” she encouraged. “Otherwise you won’t go anywhere.”

“I know. I just… See, the point, at this point, is… Someone is supposed to go to take it, and after the eight hours, they just fall, like, incapacitated to the point where they look like they’re dead. It’s supposed to be, like, to any examination, no one would be able to tell they’re still alive.”

“How long does that last?”

“Twenty-four hours. But, the last couple of plant specimens and things that I’ve tested it against haven’t revived.”

“Huh…”

“I don’t want to kill the examiner. At least it’s not like basic alchemy, when we had to test the final product on ourselves.”

“Yeah, that was awkward, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. I mean, I got through, but I saw someone making a healing potion, and they just… did the opposite.”

“Yeah, it can really go wrong if you don’t calculate it properly. But you’ve done the calculations, yeah?”

“I’ve done the calculations! I’m just… bad at math.”

Across the room, someone’s project exploded. The student stood there in shock. Pandora held her arms defensively around her own materials for a moment.

The examiner at the other end of the room moved in. “It’s okay. Clear it up, start again.”

“Oh, I hope I don’t have to start again at any point,” Pandora worried. The anxiety potion had worn off after the first hour, and she was starting to get nervous again.

Veltash nudged her with his elbow. “You’re doing great. I don’t think you’ll have to start again. It’s just brewing time now, right?”

“Yeah, brewing time and writing time.”

“Okay. Sit down, let’s write.”

  
  


Meanwhile, behind Sevini’s Soaps, Icarus and Mayes saw a stretch of alleyway and several more grates that led down to the underground tunnels beneath Erran.

Mayes found one big enough, unfolding it. Looking down, it seemed like a forty foot drop, but it was small enough that they could climb down with a rope. Icarus looped the rope through the poles on the grate, tying a complicated sailing knot at the top and testing it until he was confident that it was secure.

Down they went. It was a pretty small space. There was a bit of room by their shoulders, but in front of their chest and behind their back, they were basically sliding down.

Icarus kept his eyes closed, breathing slowly.

“You’re doing great, buddy,” Mayes encouraged.

“Mhm.”

They made their way to the ground, hand under hand, sliding to the bottom where their feet touched solid ground. There was a layer of nasty sludge at the bottom, and it smelled putrid. All kinds of sewage had been flushed down the grates, and there were various shapes squelching under their feet.

“I really hate that we have to wear sandals,” Mayes sighed.

Icarus grimaced. “This smells like the bathroom when Lorakai’s been in there.”

“I’m gonna tell him you said that.”

“Yeah, I’ve told him myself.”

They put their feet astride the small river of sludge down the tunnel, ducking their heads. It wasn’t quite tall enough to stand up straight, and the only light came from the various grates coming down from the street. There was just enough dim light for Mayes to fill their lantern with another oil flask.

“Glad that we don’t have the person with dark vision. Or the torch,” Icarus sighed.

Mayes turned on the lantern, and immediately regretted being able to see what was at their feet. The nasty mush of various matter was spotted with mysterious lumps and dead rats.

“Don’t look down,” Icarus advised.

Along the walls, away from the floor, there were a few soapy prints.

“See,” Icarus pointed, “Even they don’t want to walk in it.”

“Well they have the option, they can… Come on, let’s just follow.”

They followed the prints, pursuing down the small round tunnel before it opened into a larger maintenance tunnel. The sludge ran into a nasty looking river, but they were able to walk on the slightly raised sides around it. The footprints led them walking for almost forty minutes before the tracks ran out of soap, turning into dirty, nasty tracks.

As they walked along in the sludge river, they spotted something else. Another footprint, about the size of them.

They froze in place for a moment.

“So…” Mayes observed, “Mom’s home.”

“...Yup… They, they- ”

“They talk.”

“They talk.”

“They talk.”

“So, we can just- ”

“You talk, I talk- ”

“We can try and talk, to them.”

“Yeah. And then, maybe, go back the way we came and get some soap on our way home.”

“I’m never gonna be clean again,” Icarus lamented.

“I’m really looking forward to a hot bath…” Mayes sighed a bit, and then shook themselves, “Focus. Okay…”

Icarus looked at the sludge river with a strange expression. “Here’s a cursed thought… I can breathe underwater. Do you think I can breathe that? I don’t want to, but…”

“Icarus,” Mayes put a hand on the triton’s shoulder, “I don’t know if it counts as water anymore.”

It was quite warm and dark in the sewers. From what they had read yesterday, it seemed this tunnel made a perfect behir nest.

“They really should invest in some lighting down here,” Icarus commented.

“Let’s just follow the tracks, and see where we end up.”

“This… is their nest,” he gulped.

“Yes, we’re just gonna have a conversation with them.”

“There is  _ so much _ now, in my life, that I’m like,  _ don’t tell Lorakai!” _ Icarus squeaked. “This is the first time in my life I’ve been keeping things from him!”

“Okay?”

“And it’s piling up! And I feel so bad about it!”

“Okay, so, then why are you keeping things from him?”

“Because I can’t tell him this, he’d be worried! He keeps being like,  _ oh, I’m keeping you out of danger, there’s danger in the city…” _

“Well, he’s also the one sending us into, like, dangerous tasks for exams and stuff, so….”

“Well I guess that’s moderated, really…”

“Icarus, you’re the oldest out of us. You’ve got lots of experience dealing with all sorts of things. You have the power of a God on your side…” Mayes grinned as Icarus blew a kiss to the sky for Kord. “Come on. You can handle yourself.”

“I know.”

“He’s just protective because… he’s your guardian, you know. I’m sure if my family were around, they’d be like,  _ oh Mayes, don’t go getting yourself into trouble again… _ But, you’ve gotta be independent with yourself.”

“Oh, I am. But still don’t tell him.”

Mayes chuckled. “I’m not gonna tell him, but you should talk to him about it at some point.”

“Maybe about this stuff, but about the… some of the other stuff, no.”

“I think if you tell him that you went into the sewers to investigate some sort of lizard thing, he’d probably have a laugh about it.”

Icarus considered that, nodding. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

“Well, you said that I should come get tea with you guys sometime. I can come back you up.”

“...That might work.”

They continued to pursue the tracks. As they followed the larger ones, they realized there were definitely twelve prints tracking through the dirt. The smaller ones weaved back and forth through different turns before snaking off down a side tunnel.

They looked between the fork in the path, considering the smaller prints and the larger ones.

“If we’re gonna reason with any of them, surely it's the mother,” Mayes thought.

“But…”

“But?”

“Younger ones might be easier to influence?”

Mayes nodded. “I guess, maybe talk to the younger ones first?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Because then, if things do turn violent,” Mayes concluded, “It’s probably easier to get away from them.”

“I mean, that checks out with me.”

“Cool.”

They followed the smaller tracks, but as they headed down the tunnel, they realized the prints had disappeared. As they looked around in confusion, they heard a hissing sound from above. Looking up, they saw the behir hatchling on the ceiling, clinging to the roof with all eight legs as it looked down at them. Around one of its legs was a tag, pulled quite tight, as if it had outgrown it.

“Hey!” Icarus greeted.

“Do you want us to get that off you?” Mayes offered.

The behir hatchling quivered in fear, making a small whimpering noise before backing away.

“We’re not here to hurt you,” Icarus promised.

“Yeah, but that looks like it hurts, and…”

“We can get it off!”

“We can get it off, if you want to.”

The behir snapped something out in Draconic, but neither of them understood the language.

“Do you… speak Common?” Icarus tried, growing slightly desperate.

“We read that you guys speak Common,” Mayes urged.

“Please speak Common?”

“Please speak Common!”

The behir regarded them with frightened eyes. Then, it spoke Common. “Mama…?”

Icarus shook his head. “No…”

“Okay,” Mayes sighed, “It speaks baby Common.”

Icarus rubbed his face for a moment, and then put up his hands innocently. “Okay. Friends? Friends.”

Mayes crouched down, trying to look smaller before offering a hand out. The behir scuttled further backwards into the tunnel.

Icarus carefully squatted, trying not to sit in the shit water. “We can just wait here. You can come to us, and we’ll help you, okay?”

“Mama,” it repeated.

“Okay, we can go see Mama in a second.”

The behir blinked with sideways, lizardlike eyelids.

“Should we go find Mama?”

It whimpered.

“Yeah?”

It scuttled a bit further forwards.

“We’ll go find Mama.”

With a burst of bravery, the behir raced over their heads along the ceiling, heading past them and towards the entrance of the tunnel. It crossed the ceiling of the main tunnel before heading through an opposite branch. While it was pretty obvious to Icarus and Mayes that the main tunnel would probably lead to the mother, it didn’t seem like the baby behir had figured that out.

Icarus leaned in towards Mayes. “What do you think? Should we follow that little one, or go for the big one?”

“...Let’s go for the big one.”

“But where’s the little one leading us? Maybe it’s just running away?”

“Maybe it’s just spooked?”

“Okay. We’ll go for the big one.”

They kept going down the tunnel. As they grew closer to the end, they could see a hulking silhouette begin to appear in the very far reaches of the dim light of Mayes’ lantern. It was curled in on itself, with two big, grey horns, and twelve massive three toed feet. It had a long, shimmering blue scaled body, lying wrapped around itself like a snake. Unable to see its face, they weren’t sure if it was asleep, or awake.

  
  


Pandora was doing rather well into the fourth hour of her exam. As the first part of the test came to a close, the examiner rang the bell for her lunch break.

She breathed out a sigh to release the building tension.

Veltash did the same. “That was intense.”

“I’m so glad I’m only doing one of these all-day exams.”

“Only one?”

“Yeah, the rest of them are just, like… three, four hour papers.”

“I’ve got two more coming up.”

“Oh no,” Pandora sympathized. “What else are you doing?”

He listed off a couple of subjects, and shrugged. “Glad to be a bench partner with you.”

“Yeah,” she smiled.

“You meeting anybody for lunch?”

“I was gonna see my mentor.”

“Okay. I’ll see you back here in awhile then?”

“Yeah.”

“Bye,” he waved. Veltash looked like he had significantly pepped up from talking to her over the course of the last four hours.

“Bye, have a good lunch.”

Pandora went outside. Stepping into the daylight took a bit of adjustment, especially after sitting in the thick fog of an alchemy lab. With the various fumes of different projects, the room stunk of sulfur and all sorts of chemicals and ingredients. She stood for a moment to breathe the clean air and get a bit of sun.

Glancing around the quad, there was no sign of Mayes or Icarus. That was fine, she figured they would be busy. She went to get some food from the cafeteria before sitting outside to eat.

As she sat, Alexander found her again, coming over with his own lunch to join her at one of the stone benches throughout the quad.

He sat opposite her. “How’s it going?”

“Um, I think I’m mostly on track? But the hardest bit is to come though, so…”

“You’re gonna do great. You seem significantly calmer than this morning, so that’s something.”

“That stuff was really good. I need to get more of that.”

He grinned. “You don’t want to rely on it too much.”

“I know. It’s just… helpful… to get a good head start.”

Alexander shifted in his seat. “You’ve been… doing plenty of revision then?”

“Every spare second.”

“How are you feeling after… your second task? I heard, of course…”

“Yeah,” she frowned. “Like, it’s awful, and… he was such a nice person, and like, it’s a horrible thing to have happened… I don’t know, there’s just a really selfish part of me that is… just devastated that it will all count for nothing. Considering how much we put into it. Oh, the necklace you gave me was so helpful! I need to give it back to you, it’s like a loaner thing, right?”

“...Hang onto it for now. In case it’s useful again.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“Thanks,” she smiled. “But yeah, like… having to perform basically all night was just exhausting, and… yeah, just to think it’s not going to count for anything just… I feel selfish saying it.”

“It’s not that it doesn't count for anything. Obviously we can’t grade you on your final result of that task, but… Trust me, we still take everything into consideration, okay? We heard that you did, you all did, a fantastic job. Until that. And, if they try and hold that against you, believe me, all of us will be fighting in your corner. So…”

“Thanks.”

“It won’t be long until your third task,” he warned.

“Yeah, that’s after all of the written papers, I’m assuming?”

“Yes. It’s gonna be really quite a tight one, I think, because the three of you… I was having a look at your schedules, the last exam is almost up to the last days of the school year, so I think… be prepared that your written exams will be followed immediately by your third task. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Need you three to concentrate on this now.”

“...Is there anything that we can prepare for it in advance? Or is it another one of those where we just get thrown in the deep end?”

“It’ll be a physical trial, but not like the labyrinth. This’ll be something… genuine. Not set up by the school. Like a contract, but, a lot more extreme, I suppose.”

“High stakes…”

“Precisely.”

She gulped. “Okay…”

“So just prepare yourself, practicing your spells, concentrating on this. I’m glad you’re having a good time with your friends, but I don’t want you getting up to any hijinks.”

“Of course not. Now is, like, crunch time,” she agreed. “Anyway, how’s your day?”

He smiled, and chatted with her for the rest of the break.

  
  


Mayes and Icarus crept closer to the gargantuan creature. As they stepped near enough for the light to properly wrap around it, the creature uncurled, lifting its head to look at them.

“Hello,” Icarus greeted.

The behir let out a long, slow, hot breath, sparks of lightning flying through its mouth and nostrils. “Hello. Who are you?”

“My name is Icarus.”

“Mayes,” Mayes followed.

“...What are you doing down here in my nest?” it demanded.

“We don't mean to intrude,” Icarus explained, “But, your young ones have been infiltrating the surface, and causing havoc, and hurting people.”

“My young ones…?”

“The… smaller ones?”

“Where are they?”

“There was one just up the tunnel,” Icarus gestured.

“They’re around,” Mayes assured her. “We saw it had a… a tag?”

The huge creature shifted, revealing another massive tag around one of its own feet.

“What is that?” Icarus asked.

“Is someone holding you captive?” Mayes guessed.

“Were,” the behir replied.

“And you escaped?”

It gave a grunt and a nod.

“Good for you.”

“Will you let me get that off you?” Icarus offered.

The mother regarded him for a moment. “How do I know you won’t take me captive again?”

“How do I know you won’t bite me?”

The behir bared its teeth, more sparks of electricity spitting from its mouth.

“All honesty,” Mayes swore, holding up their hands, “All honesty, we’re trying to find, potentially, these people that were holding you captive. We want to stop them.”

The behir unfurled its massive length. As it reared up, it almost filled the huge tunnel. Turning around to move closer, dust on the floor and ceiling unsettled as it approached, and it slammed down the massive leg to present the tag. Icarus took out his dagger to cut it off. It took quite awhile, and he got the impression there was something arcane about the tag, but he was able to slice it piece by piece until the entire thing snapped off. The flesh around the tag was slightly sore, but it would heal.

Icarus stepped back. “Better?”

The behir grunted approvingly.

“One of your young ones is this way.”

“...Take me to them.”

“Okay.”

“Sure,” Mayes agreed.

Icarus and Mayes led the mother back through the tunnel. The enormous behir slithered like a python behind them, filling the entire tunnel as it went. They reached the side tunnel where they had seen the smaller one disappear, but the mother’s head was much too big to fit inside.

“We’ll go see if we can coax it out?” Icarus offered.

“Please,” the mother behir grunted.

“You just wait in the middle here,” Mayes assured her.

The behir curled around itself again, watching them intently.

Mayes bowed their head slightly. “Thank you for trusting us.”

The behir regarded the pair once more before looking at the tunnel to wait. Icarus and Mayes tracked through the smaller tunnel, making sure to look up this time. Eventually, they found the baby cowered at the back corner of the ceiling.

“Hey,” Icarus smiled.

Mayes pointed back the way they came. “Your mama.”

“She’s this way.”

The baby behir gasped. “Mama?”

It slid out, scuttling past them again as Icarus and Mayes followed. As the baby appeared, the mother lumbered over. The students had read how baby behirs were usually kicked out of the nest fairly quickly, so there wasn't much affection between the pair, but the mother seemed pleased, giving an approving snort. “Thank you.”

“Do you want us to get the tag off the little one as well?” Mayes offered.

The mother behir barked out something in Draconic. The smaller one approached closer, shaking slightly. Mayes sliced the tag off fairly easier before the baby ran back up and across the mother’s neck.

“How many more do you have?” Icarus asked.

“Three more,” the mother replied.

“Okay…”

“Don’t know if they escaped.”

“Where did you escape from?”

The behir looked off. “Large building. Abandoned.”

“Did you use these tunnels?”

“Found my way down here afterwards.”

“Okay… How long ago?”

“Three days.”

“Three days… We want to go shut these people down, so we can return your babies to you, and then… we can help you leave the city?”

“Please,” she agreed.

“Will you stay here, and keep the little one with you?”

The mother bowed her head in agreement.

“Before we go, is there any sort of general direction you can give us about this building, or…? Anything at all?”

It turned to face the far end of the tunnel. “Down there. Don’t turn once. You’ll see a hole where I broke in.”

“Thank you.”

“Appreciate it,” Mayes nodded.

“We’ll see you soon.”

The pair of them backed away respectfully. The enormous behir let out a crackle of lightning breath before turning back towards the nest.

  
  


Pandora returned to the examination room after her lunch break. The exam was almost over, and the atmosphere was tense. She did rather well for the first hour of the afternoon half, but had stumbled a bit in the second hour.

Veltash leaned over. “It’s looking amazing.”

“Okay…” she took a breath. “Still getting into the really serious stuff.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. I think I’ve done everything right…”

“You doing okay?”

“Hopefully nobody dies…”

“You can do it.”

“So can you,” he returned. “We’ve got this.”

He reached out to grab her hand, and she took it. Veltash squeezed hers. “We can do this.”

“We can do this,” she repeated. “Okay, should we make a bit of space between us just in case?”

“Yeah,” he slid apart from her. “So what are you thinking of doing when you finish school?”

She sighed. “No idea really. Like, I had had in my mind for the longest time that I was going to be an arcane advisor, which is what my dad wants for me… But I don’t know. A friend of mine said something recently that made me think… maybe I don’t have to do that.”

“Do you... get along with your dad?”

“I love him more than anything.”

“That’s good. Still don’t have to do what he says, though.”

“I know. Like… he’s always done so much for me and my sisters. He’s been like, dad, mom, confidante, best cook in the world… He’s been everything.”

Veltash chuckled. “My parents don’t agree with this at all.”

“What, being at Delphos?”

“Being at Delphos,” he nodded.

“Why not?”

“It’s just not really a done thing. They’d much rather I worked in a temple, or was a scholar, or librarian, or something.”

“Well, you’re a different kind of scholar.”

“Yeah, well, that was my argument,” he grinned. “I’ve thought about going into the military or something, but, I’m not sure. I just don’t want to be stuck in the library.”

“That’s okay.”

“I don’t want to be reading about stuff forever. I want to experience things, you know?” He sighed. “Not really our done thing, though.”

“Maybe you can start your own thing.”

“Yeah,” he smiled, “You too.”

“I guess… I just don’t know what that is. When you’ve had one thing in mind for so long… you don’t really have space for anything else.”

“I like to think something will come along and find you. Rather than trying to find something, you know?”

“That’s a nice way of thinking about it.”

“Look for guidance in people around you,” he advised.

“Yeah…” Pandora smiled. “I’ve got good people around me.”

As the exam came to a close, Vishal worked furiously, talking to himself a bit. A few times, Veltash moved to touch something before muttering to himself, and deciding to go for something else. Connecting a few pieces of history, Pandora eventually came to the realization that Veltash was a Kalashtar. There was a chance that, as he mumbled, he wasn’t actually talking to himself. 

Icarus and Mayes continued down until they found the massive, gaping hole into the tunnel from the street above. It was about forty feet straight up.

“More rope?” Mayes suggested. “We could lasso it?”

Icarus frowned, looking up. “Uhhh….”

There were some loose stones around the walls they might be able to use as handholds. Mayes climbed about ten feet up the wall before they couldn’t find any further footholds, and had to come back down. They had climbed before, but this was almost a sheer cliff. Icarus did better, moving very, very slowly. He was practically shaking as his arms found the strength to lift himself up, reaching for the next handhold before dragging himself to the top of the hole. Mayes looked up, getting an eyeful up Icarus’s tunic before the triton slithered out to flop on his back at the top of the hole.

“I made it!” he panted.

“Can you throw a rope down?”

“Yeah. Give me like… a minute…”

Catching his breath and rolling over, Icarus threw down the rope. Mayes climbed up, joining Icarus at the top. They were now standing outside the dying brown lawns of a very abandoned bathhouse.

“Bathouse,” the two chorused.

It was a huge, rectangular building with high arches and columns on the outside. There were several wooden doors that had now been chained shut, looking very overgrown and untended to.

Mayes began frantically brushing nothing off their arms.

Icarus eyed them. “You good?”

“I just feel gross.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll never be clean again.”

“Solidarity. Bath after this?”

“Yeah, please. Okay.”

They moved to the outside of the bathhouse. There were many wooden doors, now chained closed, as well as some quite high up windows. One of the large, gaping holes seemed to be where the behir had escaped through the wall.

“Should we try and get to the windows?” Icarus suggested.

“Yeah. You want to put me on your shoulders again?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Mayes climbed onto Icarus’s shoulders, but they were still nowhere close to reaching the window.

“Okay,” Icarus lowered them. “That didn’t work.”

“Nope.”

“...Wanna take the door?”

“Sure.”

Mayes spent ages fiddling around with the lock on the door, but they just couldn’t get it. It seemed to be an industrial level padlock, too large for their trap tools. Icarus offered a boost from his own assistive magic, and trying again, Mayes managed to click it open.

“Good job!” Icarus grinned.

The chain made a loud, heavy noise as it slid away from the door handles.

Icarus shushed it.

Mayes creaked the doors open slowly, revealing many dust particles floating around in the air. The place looked completely empty, abandoned, and untouched.

“That doesn’t make sense…”

“Maybe they’ve just been holding the creatures here for a very short amount of time?” Mayes guessed.

Inside, winding corridors and courtyard led through now abandoned hot baths and steam baths, with a sign for an open air bath out in the center of the massive courtyard. All of them were now drained of water, gathering dust and dead leaves from what looked like several years of disuse. The atmosphere was eerie, and strange shadows played across the walls and cracks in the roof. Slabs of marble, though dirty, were still marvelous looking. This place had clearly been beautiful in its heyday. The upper register was decorated with stucco wall plaster, and the floors were covered in brightly colored mosaics showing fish and seahorses, now dirty.

Moving through, they found little in the way of signs of civilization. It was now an empty building. Icarus looked around for the behir’s footprints, and searching the building over, he eventually found slither tracks through the dust leading outside. Across the courtyard of the bathhouse and past the outdoor bath, the tracks led to a side building. The doors, which had been chained shut, were busted open. The steps inside that building led immediately down.

“Seems promising,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah. Down?”

“Down.”

“Okay.”

The stairs still looked abandoned, though there was a clear marking of where the behir had slid out. They headed down, finding themselves in an underground temple to Süne. It seemed to have been a part of the bathhouse, now littered with old candles in carved alcoves, melted down into the stone. Down here, there were countless footprints in the dust, leading to and through a hole in the wall at the far end.

Reaching the hole, they found another subterranean corridor that led under the bath vaults, holding massive braziers that sat under each bath on the upper layer, each ten to fifteen feet wide, meant to stoke the baths and keep them warm.

One of the braziers had some obvious scuff marks on the floor near it. Sharing a look, Icarus and Mayes pushed it together. It just about shifted, revealing a sliver of another ramp going down underneath it.

Mayes shook their head in exasperation. “How many of these tunnels could they go?”

“How did the behir get out of this?” Icarus wondered.

It was too messy in this room to tell where the behir tracks had gone. “Slippery. Let’s just go.”

As the pair of them moved away, heading back to the hole in the temple wall, Mayes caught sight of some papers covered in dust. They had been tucked away behind something, but they seemed to have fallen out of where they had been hidden. Flipping through, they found two important documents.

One was a list of important dates and shipments, the cargo unspecified. One of the dates on the page was for tonight. The other page noted the Gull’s Gauntlet Tavern, and the password they were given yesterday.

“We need backup,” Icarus concluded.

“We need backup,” Mayes agreed. “But, we know how to get here… or at least we know a little bit more about what we’re doing, I suppose.”

“Yeah.”

“And we’ve agreed to help… a big snake monster.”

“Because it’ll help everyone,” Icarus reasoned. “And she’s not a monster, she’s a mother.”

“Yeah, I don't have a problem with it, it’s just… it’s a day,” they chuckled.

“It is one of the days we are having.”

“We are having  _ a day, _ Icarus.”

“Yup,” the triton grinned. “Let’s go get Pandora? Please, let’s go get Pandora?”

“Let’s go get Pandora- No, let’s go shower.”

“Let’s  _ shower,” _ Icarus realized. “And then get Pandora.”

“Yeah, I don’t think she’d wanna hug us like this.”

Icarus looked down at himself. “I don’t wanna hug us like this.”

Mayes draped an arm around him, grinning. “Shut up.”

Icarus allowed himself to be pulled into the embrace, laughing despite the smell. As they came out of the bathhouse to head into the town, they realized they were only a district or two away from the school. The pair of them headed back towards Delphos Academy.

  
  


The exam came to a close, and Pandora finished strong. Veltash made eye contact with her as they both corked their final alchemy projects, lifting their hands away. Nothing exploded, though there had been another explosion of glass from a different project since the exam began.

Pandora’s sat perfectly. She had made five beautiful vials of her arcane explosive. Veltash sat four vials of poison on the table. They both took a deep breath as the examiner rang the bell, signifying the end of the exam.

Pandora stacked up all of her paperwork, thinking over her performance. She came out of the exam confident that she had known exactly what she was doing.

As she made her way back to the quad with some of the other students, all rolling their shoulders and looking exhausted, relieved, or panicked, she saw Icarus and Mayes crossing the courtyard towards the baths.

“Hey!”

“Hi!” Icarus greeted, grinning warmly before suddenly flinching away as she approached. “Don’t come near us!”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“We smell real bad!”

“We stink!” Mayes overlapped, stepping away.

Pandora put a hand over her nose as the smell hit her. “Oh Gods, you stink!”

“Do you want to have a relaxing bath? You look like you need a relaxing bath!”

“Come with us to the bath,” Icarus urged. “We’ll fill you in at the bath.”

Pandora followed from a safe distance. “I’m not sharing a bath with you though!”

“You don’t have to!”

Veltash raised a brow at the scene, waving an uncertain hand. “Bye…”

Pandora turned away from her smelly friends. “Hey, good job today.”

“You too. You did amazing.”

Veltash looked back over at the others, still a bit confused. Icarus and Mayes waved in greeting, and Veltash promptly held his nose.

“We know,” the pair chorused.

Veltash flashed them a thumbs up. “You two… smell great.”

“No we don’t.”

Veltash shook his head, scrunching up his nose before turning away quite quickly.

  
  


Pandora, Mayes, and Icarus headed to the bathhouse. Icarus and Mayes tore their clothes off to jump in while Pandora chose a bath a significant distance away from theirs. She made her way into the big one, scooting along the side of the saltwater pool in the heat and steam.

Mayes called over. “So how did it go?”

“Didn’t explode anything,” she reported.

Icarus popped his head above the water. “Well done!”

“Awesome,” Mayes agreed.

“And I think it’s stable,” Pandora continued. “And, we should be able to use it, if they clear it to be used out in the field.”

“I’m sure it’s gonna be amazing, Pandora.”

“How did you guys get on?”

Mayes and Icarus looked at each other for a moment. “Well…”

“We found the mom,” Mayes explained.

“And one baby!” Icarus added.

“But there are two more.”

“Three!”

“Three more?” Pandora clarified.

“And we made a promise to the mom…”

“...that we’d find the babies,” Mayes finished.

Pandora stared at them from across the bathhouse. “Wait, you spoke to it?”

“Oh yeah.”

“They speak Common,” Icarus shrugged.

Pandora blinked. “Yeah, I guess…”

“Though the baby could only say  _ Mama…” _

“That’s kind of cute,” Mayes grinned.

“Yeah.”

Pandora looked at the pair a bit, taking that in.

“Anyway, we need to get a bath, and go and get ready, and go back to the bathhouse,” Icarus continued, “Because…”

“They’re getting a shipment in tonight,” Mayes supplied.

“Or, they’re taking the babies out.”

“Yeah. And it’s definitely linked to what’s going on underneath the tavern. But we need backup, because… yeah.”

“Okay…” Pandora nodded. “Are we bringing anyone else?”

“You.”

“Yeah, you,” Icarus grinned. “But it might be worth getting Orion, or Damen. Or, not Damen,” Icarus shook his head, frowning. “Damen’s very… not…”

“But Orion’s invested in this,” Mayes continued. “And, he’s cool.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Pandora agreed. “Sure.”

“Only if you’re up for it.”

“...What are we gonna be doing? Are we doing more sneaking, or…?”

“We don’t know,” Icarus admitted. “Either sneaking, or like, stealing baby monsters because we told the mom we’d get the baby monsters back to her and then escort them out of the city?”

“Technically, they stole the baby monsters,” Mayes reasoned.

“That’s true!”

“So we’re kind of…”

“Liberating!”

“...Repossessing them, to their mother.”

Icarus shrugged, mumbling to himself. “I prefer my word…”

Pandora rubbed her face. “I feel like I missed so much.”

“It’s been a day!”

“We ran through a soap store!” Mayes added. “I don’t think we’re welcome there anymore.”

“Not been welcomed there for many years,” Icarus grinned.

Mayes raised a brow. “Icarus, what did you do?”

Icarus put his head in his hands, laughing quietly to himself. “It looked delicious!”

Pandora’s face contorted in confusion. “Wait, what did you do?”

“He ate soap,” Mayes announced.

“When?”

“When he was nineteen.”

_ “When you were nineteen?!” _

Pandora let out an exasperated sigh and sank under her water for a bit. Her horns peaked out at the top, while her hair floated at the surface.

Icarus waited intently for Pandora to resurface, continuing his defense as soon as she breached. “Listen, I was dared to!”

“That’s not what you told me,” Mayes grinned.

“...Eh, you know…”

“He said they looked delicious.”

“They  _ do _ look delicious!”

“You were  _ nineteen!” _ Pandora repeated.

“I was still dared to!”

“No you- ”

“Yes I was!”

“Whatever.” Pandora pulled herself out of the bath, ignoring Icarus’s offended expression.

As Mayes stewed in the bath, they considered the length of the tunnel they had walked through, and the layout of the city. It suddenly clicked that the distance of the tunnel suggested some kind of connection between the tavern and the bathhouse, as different ends of the same place.

“Hey Icarus.”

“Mhm?”

“I just had a thought.”

“Okay?”

“You know how all those tunnels were like, connected and stuff?”

“Yeah?”

“The bathhouse and the tavern are definitely connected. So we could go for either one, as an entry point.”

“Hmm… Which one do you think is gonna be safer?”

“Well, if we sneak in through the bathhouse, we’re very obviously not supposed to be there- ”

“Well, we’re kind of very obviously not supposed to be at the- ”

“But if we give the password at the tavern, then they’ll think we’re there to do business. And like I said to them, I do technically have rare creature parts on me.”

“Yeah, technically… We can just say we were hired by Kondou recently?”

“Unless he’s there, and able to… not verify that.”

“That’s true… What do you think Pandora?”

She turned, looking back over. “Hm? What?”

“We’re going to the tavern.”

“What, again?”

“Mayes just said the passages are probably connected.”

“From the tavern to the bathhouse,” Mayes explained. “So we either sneak in through the bathhouse and risk getting caught, or we go through the tavern as if we are confident patrons.”

“And you’re sure this shipment is coming somewhere between the two? Or is it elsewhere?”

“Well…”

“Have you got the papers?” Icarus prompted.

“I’ve got the papers,” Mayes confirmed. “If the two are linked, then it’d make sense that it’d be something to do with that.”

“Maybe, but…” Pandora thought, “Shipment… Would that suggest something coming from outside the city?”

“Or that they’re taking the babies out,” Icarus guessed. “Because the babies weren’t there, that we could find. She escaped three days ago.”

“...I guess it’s worth looking, at one of them. The only thing is that they’ve seen our faces in the tavern. And they were kind of suspicious.”

“I think I’ve got a plan to get past that bartender,” Icarus grinned.

“Okay? What plan?”

“Well, I’ve got that coin.”

“That’s true,” Mayes mused.

“Could work,” Pandora agreed.

Icarus shrugged. “We can try it.”

“We can try it.”

“But also,” Mayes continued, “Like I said…”

“You’ve got the password now,” Icarus nodded.

“I’ve got the password. And, I’ve kind of made a friend there, I guess…”

“Yeah, and we’re with you!”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Let’s get dressed, and go.”

  
  


The three of them vacated the baths, hurrying back to their individual dormitories and quickly getting changed into something inconspicuous. Mayes scribbled a note in thieves’ cant with the symbols for  _ Friends - Here - Sell _ just in case.

Pandora sat down with her new spell scroll. Exhausted from the exam, she barely managed to copy it into her spellbook. Hurriedly practicing it over the hour, she slammed the book closed and ran back down to meet the others.

“Hi. Sorry…”

“Hey!” Icarus grinned. “No worries.”

“It’s okay,” Mayes assured her.

“Just had to fit in some more learning,” she explained.

Icarus chuckled. “You don’t stop.”

“No.”

“Come on.”

“Let’s go.”

“Should we grab Orion somehow?” Mayes asked.

“Where would he even be?”

“I don’t know,” Icarus realized. “He just…”

“I can try contacting him?”

“Sure. Do you want to do it on the way, and if he wants to meet us there…?”

“Sure. I'll do it when we get a bit closer.”

The three of them passed over two silver for their ride yet again. As they sat in the back, it pulled off and headed back towards the Halfway District. The group of them sat there for quite awhile, waiting. Eventually, as Icarus was sitting staring up at the sky, he felt the tooth on his necklace get warm for a moment. Then, he heard a voice in his head.

_ “Hey Tadpole. Don’t know what this thing is about, but if you’re going after Kondou, please be careful. He’s dangerous, and the guy’s crazy.” _

Icarus thought on Damen’s words for a moment before replying.

_ “It’s so you can contact us, if anything happens to you. What do you know about Kondou? You say he’s dangerous? We’re heading there now.” _

Mayes watched Icarus speak to the air. “...What?”

“Are you sending?” Pandora realized.

“I might have… used my school money card to infuse his necklace with a sending spell for that reason,” Icarus admitted.

“Oh… How much debt are you in now?”

Icarus swallowed. “I’d rather think about the future… than like, the now…”

“So, a lot,” Mayes concluded.

“The future, when you need to pay back your debt?” Pandora needled.

“When I’m paying it off,” Icarus corrected. “And it’s paid.”

“Okay… So how many times can you use it?”

“I think they said like, two or three times?”

“Okay. That’s cool.”

“Yeah, I just thought it’d be easier to try and, um, if he got… in trouble… He just said Kondou’s dangerous, though. Like he knows him.”

“Personally?”

“I don’t know. It kind of came across that way, but, he didn’t say anything yesterday.”

“When that name was mentioned the other night, he dropped the tea he was making.”

“I noticed that,” Mayes recalled.

“Yeah, same,” Icarus frowned.

“But he didn’t seem to have any look of recognition on his face, so if he was good enough at hiding it…”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Should I get in touch with Orion?” Pandora offered.

“Sure,” Icarus agreed. “We’re getting up close now.”

“Okay. So, should I say to meet us at the tavern?”

“If he wants to.”

“Okay.”

She closed her eyes, and sent out her message.  _ “Hi Orion, we have a lead. Meet us at the Gull’s Gauntlet. Should be there soon.” _

Orion’s voice returned quickly, his smile almost audible in the words.  _ “Okay Pandora. See you there. Look to the skies!” _

They took the cart the rest of the way, getting off a little ways down the street from the tavern. Hanging around for another ten minutes or so, they noticed a dark, winged shape flying overhead, before landing down in one of the alleyways near the tavern.

The trio headed around the alleyway, where Orion was flexing and folding his wings away.

“Was that your new cloak?” Pandora asked. “Or… you?”

“No, that’s just me,” he grinned.

“That’s so cool.”

“It’s very exhausting.”

“I wish I could do that.”

“It is very cool,” Icarus smiled.

“Thanks…” Orion let out a grunt of pain as he stretched the back of his tunic open to let the wings fold away inside. Reaching around, he took the strap of a belt, pulling it around his wings until they were flush against his back.

Pandora grimaced a bit as she watched. “Do you need to do that?”

“That’s… significantly easier than just walking around having wings,” he replied.

“I guess…”

“Kind of attracts attention. So what’s this lead?”

Icarus shook his head. “If you believe it…”

“We found the mom of these creatures,” Mayes explained.

“She’s very reasonable!”

“Oh yeah.”

Orion looked between them. “Okay…”

“She and the baby that we found there had tags. She told us as much, they had broken free of captivity.”

“And then, when we went to where she had broken out of,” Icarus continued, “You found paperwork…”

“Saying that there was a shipment tonight. Which we think might be someone coming to collect her children, or move them out.”

“And you thought that maybe the tunnels underneath that we went into are connected…”

“They’re definitely connected, it makes sense.”

“So this is an entrance?” Orion guessed.

“Yeah. So is the bathhouse.”

“And the mom promised that if we get the babies back to her, then we can escort her and them out of the city,” Icarus finished.

Orion beamed. “Great!”

“Yeah!”

“You guys have done amazing! Well, I guess we should do this then. What’s the plan?”

“Walk up to the bar, try the password,” Mayes strategized. “If it doesn’t work, Icarus has a little trick.”

“Okay… well, you can do anything if you have confidence, right?”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly,” Icarus agreed. “Let’s try it out.”

Orion ran his fingers through his hair, taking a breath. “Okay, I’ve only got an hour on my disguise, so…”

“Let’s go.”

Orion cast the spell, and the same pale skinned, grey haired, androgynous looking elf appeared. “Let’s do it.”

They headed down the street to the bar. Orion reached for Pandora’s hand as they walked, squeezing it. “Hope you did well today.”

“Didn’t blow anything up,” she smiled.

“Sounds like you did okay then.”

Pandora squeezed his hand tightly. Orion threaded her fingers with hers, holding her hand supportively as they made their way inside the tavern.

Once again, they entered the dingy Gull’s Gauntlet. There were still too many tables scattered around, and though they didn’t see the muttering man anymore, the halfling was there with Carvus, still sitting at their table.

Mayes walked straight up to the bartender.

The bartender looked up. “Can I help you?”

They slid the piece of paper with the note across the table. “Yeah, I’m looking for something that’s got a bit of a bite to it tonight. You know, hair of the dog that bit you.”

The bartender sniffed. “Probably want to try the back.”

“Appreciate it.”

The bartender flipped over the paper, pulling a face at it before sliding it back. Mayes took it, and led the group around. They walked along the bar to the wine rack. Through the spots where the bottles were missing, a handle was visible.

The three pairs of eyes inside the bar were on them as they reached in, opening it. The door swung, and the wine rack almost knocked against the bar. Behind the door was a staircase, well lit on the other side.

Exuding confidence, they glanced back into the room once more. The halfling returned to her cards as the man continued to watch, until the bartender closed the door behind them.

Pandora and Icarus let out a long breath.

“We’re okay,” Orion assured her.

“We’re okay,” she repeated, nodding.

“This is all good.”

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed. “We’ll keep going then.”

They headed down the staircase until they were at about the same level as where they had been underneath the bathhouse. They moved down a long, straight corridor, with nine foot ceilings, simple hewn stone on the outside, and braziers all the way down. It was all quite unassuming.

They walked for quite a while until they saw a split at the end of the corridor, and a desk. Behind the desk was a very scruffy and grumpy looking bugbear. They were leaning on one elbow on the desk, reading a book.

“Evening,” Mayes greeted.

The bugbear looked up. “Evening.”

“So… which way for selling? Which way for buying?”

“Have you been drinking?”

Mayes blinked, a bit confused. “No.”

“Yeah,” Icarus quickly covered. “We had some hair of the dog earlier.”

The bugbear regarded them. “Okay.”

Icarus had spotted a very thin wire leading from behind the desk to the wall behind it. When Mayes had answered  _ no, _ the guard had reached for it. When Icarus gave the password, they let their hand drop.

“Welcome,” the guard greeted.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t know anything about selling, but…” the guard looked him straight in the eye.

“Collections?”

“Hm. Follow me.”

The guard calmly led them to the left of the T junction, revealing a door at the other end of the corridor. The bugbear opened one of the doors to the next area. There was a circular table in the center, looking quite scratched up with plenty of knife marks in it. The room was a thirty foot long chamber, filled with mismatched furniture and what might have been paintings or tapestries on the wall, all in a horrible state of disrepair.

There were six people inside. All of them were lounging around, playing with knives or sitting on the different furniture. Two stained and threadbare seats sat down one end of the wall, and the guard gestured them forwards.

Pandora gripped Orion’s hand a bit harder. Orion was sort of hiding their clasped hands behind him, trying to be discreet. “It’s gonna be okay,” he murmured. “It’s gonna be okay.”

The bugbear addressed them. “This is the common room area.”

“Thanks,” Icarus nodded.

“Bunks are beyond. I assume you’ve had training?”

“Of course,” Icarus lied. “Why would we be sent here without it?”

“Well then, I’m sure you know what to get to.”

“Thanks.”

The bugbear left them in the room. The six other people looked at them, not particularly interested. They seemed to have assumed the newcomers were meant to be there. At the other end, there was another door. The door back to the desk area and the other corridors stood behind them.

Orion squeezed Pandora’s hand slightly once more before straightening up and letting go. “I guess we should get acquainted with the bunk area.”

“Suppose so,” Mayes nodded.

Orion strolled confidently across the room towards the other door. The trio followed him down, and Orion pushed it open. The door swung open easily, revealing a short hallway lit by a single lantern at the other end. There were three other doors down the hall, each made of cheap, splintering wood. Six small chambers without doors branched off the hall as well. Glancing into them, each contained more or less identical and very small bedrooms with single bunks.

“Well, this is nice,” Icarus observed.

“Quaint,” Mayes replied.

“I think they think we might be employees,” Orion realized.

“Yeah. That’s good.”

“It’s a start.”

“Exactly.”

“It gets us in,” Icarus nodded. “It gets us close. Uh, so do we wait around here for orders for tonight? Or do we go and make ourselves acquainted with the others? Maybe we can ask some questions?”

“Probably ask some questions,” Orion considered. “We can probably get away with walking around in this place.”

“I think so.”

“I think so. I think we just need to… get to where things are happening,” Mayes replied.

Orion glanced around. “Shall we see what we can find here first?”

“Yeah, have a little look around the bunks, why not.”

The four of them looked over the stiff bunkbeds and scattered, dirty clothing. They did find a bit of money, totalling 13 silver pieces and 23 gold pieces. The trio of students quickly gathered up the coins.

In one of the rooms, there was a poster of an illustrated chimera. Mayes put their hand against the page, and felt a hole behind it. Peeling back the paper, a small chamber was revealed. It seemed to have been hand carved into the wall, with a small, refurbished wooden writing desk inside. It had two drawers on the right side of it, and a few melted candles were arranged on the desk, as well as a small stuffed snake with two heads instead of a tail. There were some blankets on the floor of the hidden room, and a few scattered wine bottles.

Mayes climbed into the small space. There was only enough room for one person to sit at the desk, the blankets stuffed down around the chair. It seemed like someone’s secret nook off their bunkroom.

Suspiciously examining the poster, Pandora checked the back for notes or writing, but found nothing. It was simply a hand painted picture of a chimera.

Mayes investigated the hidden room. One of the wine bottles on the floor was unopened, while the rest were empty. They seemed to be the same relatively cheap bottles that were stocked upstairs. With a bit of fiddling, they opened one of the desk drawers. Inside was a small, leather bound diary. Flipping to the first page, the name  _ Emelio _ was scrawled in one corner in bad handwriting. Flicking through further, they found the diary to be filled about halfway through with detailed sketches of various beasts and creatures, with many barely legible notes. Mayes tried to skim through the scribblings, but it was nearly impossible to do so without sitting down to actively study it.

They took it.

Going to wiggle open the second drawer, a three inch iron spike shot out at them, digging into Mayes’ hand. The trap had been rigged onto the bottom of the drawer.

“Ow,” they frowned, pulling out the spike.

“You okay?” Icarus called through the hole.

Mayes disarmed the trap, and slid the drawer open. “Yeah I’m good, thanks.”

Inside, they found two vials of something unknown.

“What have you got?” Pandora wondered.

“Got some… vials?”

“Can I see?”

“Sure,” they passed the vials through the wall.

Pandora took them. She was so utterly drained from the exams that she wasn’t sure she would be able to immediately identify anything arcane, but thankfully, the vials didn’t seem to be magical. She shook her head with a sigh. “I’ll look again tomorrow…”

“No worries.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Icarus assured her.

Mayes popped back out of the hole and set the poster back into place. The group moved back into the main room to talk with the strangers. It seemed that a few of the other people had moved on from that room by now, leaving only three remaining.

One of them looked up at the group. “Made yourselves nice and acquainted?”

“Yeah, just getting comfortable,” Mayes replied.

Icarus gave a shrug. “As can be.”

“As can be,” the stranger repeated, chuckling. “Never comfortable.”

“No, well… I think the floor might be softer than those beds, eh?”

The stranger laughed a bit more. “You better get used to it.”

Icarus looked over to the far door. “...The others already heading out?”

“Yeah.”

“We might head on over soon, yeah?”

“Sounds good to me,” Pandora agreed.

“Alright, well...” the stranger scratched his head, yawning wide. “Don’t be bothering us if you need anything.”

The four of them headed back out of the room. As they walked down the hall and past the bugbear at his table, the guard barked at them. “Hey!”

Icarus turned, looking innocent. “Hm?”

The bugbear gave them a bit of an irritated look. “Not getting in there without the key.”

“Oh, yeah, of course…”

The guard stood up, taking a key off his belt and walking over before unlocking the door for them.

“Thanks.”

“Please, go ahead.”

“Sure thing. Don’t know why I thought it’d just be open,” Icarus chuckled. “What’s your name again?”

“Foyve.”

“I’m Antoni. See you around.”

“See you around.”

The group filed in.

“You’re really sticking with this alter ego, aren’t you?” Mayes muttered.

“Might as well,” Icarus shrugged back.

“Fair…”

“I don’t want to give my name out to anyone!”

The four of them went through another small corridor to another door, this time, unlocked. Pushing through it, they were immediately struck in the face with a bright white arcane light hanging from the center. It was mounted above a bloodstained wooden table on a small wheeled stand, while an open metal cage sat on another platform at the other end of the room.

In the center of the room was a sallow and sharp faced man with dull brown eyes, bent over the shape of some creature laying on the table. The man looked over to them, his eyes darting over their faces with no recognition.

Icarus pulled out his coin, flicking it around in his hand and hoping to distract him with it. Unfortunately, the man didn’t seem affected, but he didn’t notice that Icarus had tried to charm him either.

The man sat up straighter, gritting his teeth. “Excuse me.”

He quickly turned, going through a different door at the other end of the room.

“Sorry,” Mayes nodded.

Once he left, the room was empty. Laying on the table was a blink dog, not moving. Pandora carefully made her way over, examining it. Its chest was still rising and falling very gently, but it appeared to be hooked up to a vial of poison.

Pandora pulled the poison out. “I think it’s alive.”

“Careful,” Orion warned. “These things can be dangerous.”

The light was coming from a glass orb suspended above the table, emitting a constant light spell.

Icarus stroked the dog’s head, passing over a bit of his healing magic. “You’re okay, don’t worry. You’re okay.”

The dog blinked its eyes open.

“Hey…”

It didn’t seem to want to move from the table.

“You stay there, buddy,” Pandora assured it.

Icarus frowned, looking over to where the man had escaped. “That guy didn’t recognize us. He’s gonna go blow the horn, we need to move.”

“Yeah.”

There were three more doors in the room. One was directly ahead of them, while the other two were next to each other and across to the left. The man had escaped through to the left.

They approached the door the man had escaped through to pursue. It was an iron door with an eyeslit across it. Etched underneath the eyeslit, written in Goblinoid, was the phrase  _ Special Containment. _

It was jammed shut.

Pulling open the eyeslit, they could see a dark, dry chamber inside, a whiff of soap and dust wafting through. Pandora looked into the dark and spotted three large containers in the center, which had written warnings of  _ Do Not Open _ and  _ Caution _ across the top. Unlit braziers surrounded the room, leading to another tunnel at the far end of the space. There was no sign of the man.

“There’s containers in there,” she reported. “But,  _ Do Not Open, Caution… _ I can get some light in there, if it’d help?”

“Yeah, we need to keep going,” Icarus urged. “We need to try and find a way to open it.” He turned to Mayes, “Can you open this door?”

Mayes shook their head. “It’s not a lock, it’s jammed.”

Icarus tried to force the door open, Mayes assisting as they slammed their shoulders into it. They heard the snap of wood, and as the door flew open, they saw a plank of wood that had been wedged against the handle snap out from the other side.

It was still dark in the containment room, but with the bit of light from the previous room, they could now all see the large crates poked with a few air holes at the edges.

“Let’s get him first,” Pandora decided.

“Yeah, get some light in here?” Icarus pressed. “If you can?”

Pandora shot out a few of her fire spells to stir the braziers, which lit up quickly in return. Besides the three containers in the center of the room, there were also two open and nearly identical iron cages in a far corner, empty. Looking inside the eye holes of the center containers, hoping for behirs, they saw something strange and viscous instead.

“Okay, we’re moving on,” Icarus urged.

“Gross,” Mayes declared, stepping away from the containers.

The group began running after the man. As they ran, Pandora and Mayes spotted a pressure plate on the floor before them. They reached out quickly, grabbing Icarus and pulling him back before he stepped onto the plate.

Down the corridor, they heard a voice. “Don’t take another step. You’ll regret it!”

The man seemed close, but he was around the next corner, out of sight. Pandora quickly reached a hand out, casting her sleep spell.

The four of them heard the sound of a body slumping behind the next wall.

“Quick, we need to get him out of the way,” Pandora directed.

Mayes bent down, trying to disarm the pressure plate quickly. Finding themselves unable to understand the workings of it well enough, Icarus simply jumped over the plate, hurrying down the corner. Tying the man’s arms behind his back as he slept away soundly, the group could see a small chamber with a workbench beyond. Pandora immediately recognized what she had seen so many of today, noticing the various alchemic tools and components around the workbench with different vials of half completed potions and oils, all in different stages of cooking and mixing.

“It’s an alchemy lab,” she realized.

“Okay…” Mayes frowned.

Icarus hoisted the man up. “Has he been experimenting on them?”

“Looks like it,” Pandora replied.

Mayes considered the scene. “This place is for rare materials…”

“Can we put him in one of the cages?”

“Yes,” the other two students chorused, carrying him over the plate and back to the cages. They loaded the man in, clicking the door shut as they heard the mechanism lock immediately.

Pandora headed to the alchemy desk, exasperated as she tried to determine what the purpose of the experimentation could be. “I’ve been looking at this stuff all day!”

She was able to recognize various potions and poisons, though she wasn’t certain of everything. “They’re making poison…”

There was a bit of paperwork on the desk. Scrabbling through it for a while, she found some pages revealing different areas in which beasts had been sighted over the past few years. There were various observations of different creatures around the Western Marshes, including notes of griffons and riders seen in the area. She held up the pages for Orion.

He sighed, running both hands through his hair. “This is a lot, huh?”

“Uh huh.”

“It’s getting what you need though, right?” Icarus offered.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Yeah, this is exactly it. We’ll just take this.”

“We need to find those babies.”

“We do,” Mayes frowned. “I guess we just have to keep going through this- ”

“Is that guy gonna sleep for long?” Orion interjected, looking concerned.

Pandora looked a bit sheepish. “He’ll sleep for… a minute…”

“So he’s probably already waking up.”

“But he can’t get anywhere…”

“But he can scream for help.”

“Can we like… stuff something in his mouth?”

The trio of students looked around for something to use, and came up empty.

“Otherwise, I’m just gonna knock him out,” Orion shrugged.

“Yeah,” Pandora relented.

“Okay. Get that lock open.”

Mayes clicked it back open. “Okay.”

The man was drowsily waking up in the cage, his eyes going wide as he realized his fate. Orion reached in, grabbed him, and knocked the man in the face until he fell unconscious.

“Great,” Icarus approved. “Good job.”

“Awesome,” Mayes agreed, locking him back in.

“Stuff something in his mouth first?”

“Uh…” Orion looked around the room. “Just get a sheet or something… I feel like we’re getting ourselves in some real shit here.”

“Yeah,” Pandora cringed.

They covered the cage with a tarp.

“Damen did say that this guy was trouble,” Icarus worried.

Orion frowned. “He what?”

“Damen said that this guy was trouble.”

“...Damen knows this guy?”

“Apparently so. He didn’t say any more about it, but…”

“Should we have another look around, if we’re here?” Pandora prompted.

“Yeah. We need to find the babies.”

“Go through these other doors?”

The group went back into the room with the table. The blink dog had now climbed down. Whilst it looked fairly vicious, snarling slightly, it had put itself in a corner, sitting there alone.

They went to the far door, finding it locked with no peephole. Mayes easily stuck their trap tools inside, wiggling it open. Inside was a closet of various medicines and cleaning supplies, along with a small pouch of 28 silver and a healer’s kit. They grabbed both.

“Okay, I feel like we should get out of this room,” Orion decided. “Are we just leaving that… dog in here?”

“I don’t really want to,” Icarus replied, “But I’m not sure it’s gonna trust us.”

“You’re good with griffons,” Pandora considered, looking to Orion. “Are you good with other animals?” 

The gladiator looked a bit uncertain. “I can try…”

He went over, whistling at the dog and beckoning it as he crouched down, petting it slightly as he tried to coax it out. The dog looked like it might bite him at first, but Orion persevered. “Okay, um… Do you wanna come with us, buddy?”

Mayes gave it a little smile. “Good doggy…”

“It’s got one of those tags you mentioned…” Orion took a knife out of his disguise from somewhere unseen, reaching down to take the tag off. The dog limped forwards, presenting the leg. “Good dog…”

“There we go,” Icarus nodded. “It can just follow us if it wants to. Okay, let’s keep going.”

“Next door,” Orion agreed.

They pushed through the third door. It wasn’t locked, but it was filled floor to ceiling with cages. There were a number of canine specimens, though not all of them blink dogs. Wolves and regular dogs were displayed in various states of consciousness. Low hanging lanterns threw silhouettes across the walls, while the sounds of barks and whines filled the space. The room had a prominent stench of urine.

The blink dog limped in after them before blinking out of sight and appearing further down the path in front of them. It sniffed up at some of the cages, turning back to give the group a sad look.

As Pandora went to try and open one of the cages, many of the animals began growling and snapping their teeth. She put her hands up, backing away. “It’s okay! I’m just trying to help you!”

Orion shook his head. “I’d love to open these, but…”

“I don’t think we can right now,” Icarus finished. “They don’t know we’re friends.”

“Let’s see if we can find the behirs,” Mayes urged.

There was one more door along the left. The four of them went straight for it, pushing their way through to yet another box room lined with iron cages. Some of them audibly hummed with magic, all of them much larger, with various creatures thrashing around in an attempt to escape. There were several giant poisonous snakes inside of the cages, as well as a tiger.

There was a portcullis to the left side of the room, and another to the right, each with cranks attached to the wall. Inside the room were also two very large empty cages, much bigger than any of the others. Mayes squinted suspiciously at the empty cages. They were chimera sized.

Investigating, they found a bit of information scrawled on a couple of different cages, including size and weight statistics, and a few tags explaining which animals had been sold, though there was no information suggesting who the buyers might be.

Looking around the room, Icarus noticed another keyhole in one of the walls, though there didn’t appear to be a doorframe. He pointed it out to Mayes.

Mayes glanced over. “Interesting…”

“You think you can open this… keyhole?”

“I can try…”

Icarus gave them a pat on the back as they went, sending over a bit of his guiding magic as Mayes set about the task. They inserted their trap tools, starting to pick it. Just as they were about to get it, a set of iron bars slammed down in front of the door. Mayes pulled their hands away quickly.

The end of a tin pipe slid down, and a voice came through. “You must think you’re pretty slick, trying to rob me. Do you think you can survive what you’re trying to steal?”

Pandora was panicking, but Icarus looked up at the pipe defiantly. “Do you think you can survive us?” he challenged.

There was a cranking sound, and the door at the left end of the room lifted up, revealing a corridor beyond.

“Oh, you gonna come meet us yourself, Kondou?” Icarus grinned.

The voice laughed. “See you at the pit.”

“Or are you too  _ chickenshit?!” _

There was no response.

The four of them persisted down the next corridor. They passed piles of remains belonging to different creatures, the stench of blood and death in the air seeping from scattered bones in the dim hallway. There were a few scraps of armour on the ground, and a few humanoid parts as well.

Down at the end, they saw two large doors pushed open into a circular arena. Bright firelight from the inside illuminated the dirt floor. Even before stepping through, they could see the vaulted ceiling. They caught a glimpse of a window higher up, about twenty five feet above the eastern wall of the space. Many torches hung around the room, silhouetting the people inside it.

The voice crackled over through another pipe. “Are you brave enough?”

“I don’t know, are you?” Icarus returned.

“Why don’t you step into the pit and see?”

Icarus gave Pandora a little squeeze.

Mayes turned to the others with a grin. “Come on. Let’s take this guy.”

Orion took a breath. “We can do this.”

“Oh yeah. Every bit of confidence.”

They continued to stride into the pit. Icarus unsheathed his sword, pulling out his shield. Mayes took out their own double blades, cracking their neck.

They pulled out their weapons, taking a deep breath to steel themselves before walking out into the oval arena. It looked almost like a miniature version of the Maw itself. Behind them, the doors closed. Standing down in the pit, there was no way out.

Another door lifted on the other side. They heard a deep, deep growling. Two large black paws peeked out, followed by two heads with red eyes and mouths full of teeth.

A cerberus stepped out into the arena.

  
  



	17. In Too Deep, Episode Seventeen

Bright firelight revealed figures inside a glass window above the pit. Inside, a man stood in a fine looking palla, his face shadowed from the light behind him. He looked down at the pit, and though the trio couldn’t see his face, they felt taunted by his presence.

While most of the arena gates were barred to prevent escape, one of the gates opened, and a two headed cerberus emerged, padding out of the tunnel.

Pandora waved a hand, and a sheen of defensive magic sparkled around her. The cerberus’s neck split into two heads, tongues lolling out of both of them, saliva dripping from both jaws. It prowled closer, watching them carefully. It paced slightly back and forth, looking at them before drawing back on its haunches. The trio spotted another tag wrapped around one of its legs, but there was no time to think before a cone of molten rock sprayed out towards them.

Icarus managed to jump out of the way with a light scorching, but Mayes and Orion found themselves trapped. As it struck them, the rock hardened them to the ground. Orion smashed the rock away from himself, just managing to kick himself free to run a bit further away.

As they stared out at the creature, Mayes felt Daichi’s energy absorbed into their own. Icarus and Pandora saw a flash of green in Mayes’ eye burst towards the cerberus's face for a short moment, but the dog didn’t seem to notice.

Icarus ran around the creature, summoning his spiritual weapon as he went. The ghostly blade flew past the beast as he pulled out the physical version of Lorakai’s sword, banging on his shield as a distraction. “Hey! Over here!”

A loud noise sounded from somewhere outside the arena, and another gate opened.

Pandora sent out one of her fire spells. The fire struck it, engulfing it for a moment before dissipating into the air, but the dog didn’t seem bothered at all by the flames.

“Oh, that’s a lot of my moves wiped out!” Pandora called, worried.

Icarus kept his eyes on the cerberus. “It’s okay. We’ve got this.”

Something else came out of the gate behind Mayes. As Pandora’s fire dissipated off the back of the two headed cerberus, they saw a far larger creature, this one with three heads, coming out of the opposite gate. It had red skin, looking almost like it had been skinned already, with spines all the way down all three of its heads and along its back, and each head dotted with multiple eyes glowing green. It had massive teeth, and it was at least twice as tall as any person. It approached, turning its head towards Mayes. Seeing them restrained by the rock, it went in for the attack.

The creature lunged for them, all three heads snapping and biting into Mayes. The others could do nothing but watch as the creature descended on Mayes, who looked on the verge of unconsciousness already.

The smaller one moved towards the tieflings. There was a spark of flame in its mouth, but this time, it didn’t let out the breath. Orion reached out into the air, summoning a double bladed scimitar of elven design that coalesced in his hand. He swung around, making the first blow with one end of the scimitar. Flipping it the other way to swing again, the cerberus managed to dodge the second attack.

Mayes kicked their way out of the molten rock and bolted to the other side of the arena. From where he was looking down at them in the glass box, Mayes could hear Kondou’s laughter.

Icarus ran up to the larger cerberus. Three tongues flailed out of three massive sets of jaws, staring down at him. “Hey puppy, nice puppy… Okay… Fetch?”

His spiritual weapon sliced into the creature. Clapping his hands together, a wave of thunder rolled through the arena, slamming into the creature and forcing it backwards into its cage. “Stay!”

Pandora pulled out a little vial of water, flinging it over herself to cast another defensive spell. Stepping forwards, she slashed into one of the creatures with her seablade.

The huge one, all three heads focused in on Icarus, charged towards him. Two of its heads clamped their jaws down into him. As it did, Icarus let out a bolt of lightning, once again pushing the creature backwards. “No!”

Molten rock shot from three mouths, firing relentlessly towards Icarus. As it began to harden in place, it fixed him to the ground. Icarus hissed in pain. “That burned! Okay…!”

The smaller one bit at the tieflings again, teeth digging into them both. As the dog ripped into Pandora, she retaliated with one of her earlier defensive spells, the sheen of magic around her exploding in its faces.

Taking the double bladed scimitar in one hand, Orion sent out a spell of his own. There was an explosion of spectral versions of his sword, surrounding him before striking the cerberus. The dog was still standing, but barely, starting to struggle on its feet. With the last strike as the spectral blades exploded out of him, he drove his physical scimitar in the space where its neck divided into two heads, and the creature collapsed to the ground.

He looked over to Pandora. “Okay! Onto the bigger one!”

Mayes downed their greater healing potion carefully before turning to move forwards, watching the remaining creature for its intentions and vulnerabilities as it grunted.

Icarus wiggled his arms, pulling out his Keoghtom’s Ointment and desperately rubbing it over himself. With another thunder spell, Icarus sent pieces of the tunnel collapsing onto the creature as the stone above it exploded.

He shouted up towards the box again. “Didn’t know we were facing a coward!”

Kondou stood up, leaning over to get a better look into the arena. Icaurs looked up at his face. A rough, scarred up looking hobgoblin with greased back black hair stared down. He leaned down for a moment before smirking, and turned to walk away from the window.

Pandora ran around in front of Icarus. A green, spectral aura appeared out of Pandora, rushing through the creature. It was a considerably powerful necrotic spell, and she felt the spell take exactly as it should. Arcane energy surged through her, but the dog shook it off, completely unaffected.

Pandora blinked at it. “...Okay… That didn’t work…”

“Get out!” Icarus warned, putting a hand forwards. “Get out from in front of me!”

She backed away as the dog snarled, sparks of fire coming out of all six nostrils before pushing its way back out of the tunnel. It went straight for them as Icarus tried to shove in front of Pandora, though he was still restrained to the floor.

The creature bit into Icarus, and as it made contact, another wave of thunder came out of the triton and into the dog’s mouth, pushing it once again immediately backwards.

The dog moved forwards once more, and another pair of jaws pierced into Icarus as he fell unconscious. Pandora squealed, and the creature sent one more head over to her. As the teeth dug into her skin, she sent out another spell, causing shards of the red sheen around her to stab into the beast.

Orion ran straight over to Pandora, crossing the battlefield and bringing out an orb of chromatic energy before flinging it over Pandora’s head. The spell landed squarely on the creature, the dog letting out a howl as Orion bent down to check over Icarus.

Mayes ran over, trying to swipe at it with the katana, but they couldn’t manage to get their blade in.

Icarus was still unconscious.

Pandora stepped in front of the triton again, sending out another spell. Flinging ice wildly at the creature, the blasts of freezing cold struck against the dog once, twice, thrice, before it froze in place, collapsing to the floor.

Pandora panted heavily, and turned around. “Icarus?”

“We have to help him,” Orion urged. He started tearing at the molten rock, freeing the triton’s legs. “Have we got anything to help him?”

“I have a potion,” Pandora offered. She pulled it out, pouring it down Icarus’s throat.

Icarus gasped awake on the ground, his friends around him. “Where is it?”

“It’s dead.”

“It’s down,” Orion echoed.

“It’s gone.”

“Pandora got it.”

Icarus looked back up to the box. “Where is he?”

The others followed his gaze, but the box was empty.

Pandora looked around the arena. “Where do we go from here?”

All of the bars from all the doors suddenly began raising up. Behind them was the door they had entered through, while another one lay across to the other side, centered between the other two doors where the creatures had come from.

Icarus rolled himself to his feet, looking at the far tunnel. “Okay, we need to- Let’s keep moving.”

He started walking towards the gate that seemed to lead to the box, giving himself a bit of his own healing magic as he went. The others followed.

Bracing themselves, the group moved through to the next room. They were immediately struck by the strangeness of the room in comparison to the others they had seen. It was a small parlour with a large brazier hanging from the ceiling in the center. Plush furnishings surrounded them, organized against decorated walls with different murals on them. Various crates and shelves were stacked against one wall, next to a heavy iron door that looked somewhat out of place in the aesthetic of the rest of the room. There was a small table set with warm food and other refreshments. Along another wall, there was a dark wooden door with a gilded doorknob.

There were crumbs on the table, indicating that people had been here recently making use of the refreshments. They could hear the sound of a creature thrashing around behind the door.

“Should we look?” Pandora asked.

“I mean, we’re looking for creatures,” Mayes replied. “So…”

“Yeah, but if we open the doors, is it gonna jump us?”

“We can be prepared,” Orion assured her.

“Exactly,” Mayes nodded.

“I’m still doing okay, I don’t mind opening it and the three of you standing back.”

Pandora looked to the door warily. “Okay…”

Icarus glanced to the other door. It was unlocked. He tried the door, pulling it open easily to reveal a small set of stairs leading upwards, probably towards the box.

“Which one are we taking?” Pandora asked.

“Look for the creature,” Icarus directed. “I’ll wait here, see if he comes down. If not, we’ll just go straight up.”

“Okay…”

Orion tried the door. It was locked, and reinforced on the other side as well. Crackles of lightning sounded from behind it.

“That’s what we’re looking for,” Mayes frowned.

Pandora eyed the lock. “Can you get the door open, Mayes?”

Mayes kneeled down next to it, taking their time. Slowly, they were able to figure it out, and they heard a soft clinking sound as the lock turned in place. Tentatively, Mayes opened the door. There was a flash of lightning from the other side. Mayes waited a moment, and pulled the door further.

There were iron cages inside the room, with three more behir hatchlings inside. On the outside of the cages were labels marking them for shipment.

“Can we get these cages open?” Pandora urged.

“I can definitely try. Let’s just- ”

“Talk to them first,” Icarus interjected.

“Talk to them first.” Mayes put up their hands, stepping slowly forwards. “Hey… We know where your Momma is… We can take you to your mom.”

The behir hatchlings cocked their heads, listening. They settled down slightly in the cages, squawking at each other in draconic as they hid in the back corners. Mayes tried to look non-threatening as they went about picking the rest of the locks.

“Should we get the tags off them?” Pandora suggested.

“They probably won’t,” Icarus frowned. “Unless the mom is here. Let’s check upstairs, then.”

While Mayes unlocked the cages, Icarus headed up the stairs to another nicely decorated room. He could faintly smell the scent of smoking pipes. Dark wood furniture gave the impression of luxury and business, while a few tiered seats looked down into the arena pit.

Turning over furniture and looking through drawers, Icarus found stacks of paperwork, and several bills of sale between various people without names, giving only symbols or initials as a signature. One of the names was Angelos Kondou.

The papers were mostly for live animals or rare creature parts, including the people looking to buy the behir hatchlings, as well as buyers for manticore spines, dragon throat glands, and hippocampus tails, all detailed in the paperwork.

There was also a schedule of old arena fights that went back for several years.

Icarus took a load of pages, gathering it all up and stuffing it into pouches. He swept around again, looking for doors or passages in the wall, anything that might indicate where Kondou had gone. He found a staircase on the other side of the box, going down. It led to the keyhole with no visible door they had seen before, but he couldn’t open the door at the top.

The three hatchlings slithered out like snakes, heading straight for the first opening back towards the arena as they tried to escape.

“Wait!” Pandora called. “Wait a minute!”

She pointed out that there was a small guest map in the room, explaining how to get in and out. If they went back through the arena, through the room with the two portcullises, the second portcullis would take them to an exit. As they went, they looked once more at the many crates in the room. The crates were stacked on a wheeled cart, some empty while others contained assorted furs and sins that looked expensive, including fine wines and other various luxuries.

“I feel like if we take them, we’re gonna be no better than they are,” Pandora decided.

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “I don’t want this dirty stuff anyway.”

“No.”

“I just want to help these kids get back, and at least, hopefully, we’ve got some evidence out of this…”

“Can I make a suggestion?” Orion spoke up. “Big cart with wheels, big babies…”

“Big babies,” Mayes nodded. “Yeah.”

“We don’t really want to be walking through the streets of Erran with three hatchlings.”

“That’s true…”

Together, they emptied out a few crates, coaxing the behirs into a cart before covering them up in the trolley. Mayes guarded the trolley as they waited for Icarus to head back down. He returned shortly, clutching the papers.

“What have you got?” Pandora wondered.

“Um, some notes of sales and fight schedules for things and people they’ve had down here. Looks like a viewing box that he has people come in.”

“That’s useful. Good as evidence. Can we please get out of here?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Orion echoed.

The group turned around, beginning to head out. As they did, Icarus kept back, waiting for the others to reach the other side of the arena.

Lifting his hands, he sent out a spell that burst like an explosive. The power centered on the ceiling, and his magic shattered the wall, the structure collapsing in on itself. As it fell, various tiles from the bathhouse above broke and fell through.

Pandora shouted in surprise at the noise, and after a moment, Icarus rejoined them.

“Okay…” Orion stared at the triton for a beat. “If anybody heard that, we should probably get moving quickly.”

Icarus shrugged. “I just thought I’d leave them a little present.”

The group return to the area with the iron cages humming with magic, giant snakes and tigers standing captive. There was a large portcullis on the other side, with a crank now left next to it as if someone had quickly used it.

They cranked the door open. The room beyond was once again stacked with a number of cages, this time holding avian species in varying states of consciousness. The sounds of caws and screeches filled the entire area, with the floor around the cages stained white and covered in feathers. There were giant eagles, owls, and many other birds unconscious or shrinking at their presence, cowering in the corners of the cage bars.

“We’ll report this the moment we get out of here,” Icarus declared.

“I hate to leave them in here,” Pandora whimpered.

“There’s nothing we can do. If we let them out, they’ll attack us.”

“Or we’ll just be releasing them into the streets of Erran,” Orion frowned.

“If we report it to the authorities, then they can come and release them properly, you know? Let’s just get these babies out, and report them.”

There was one more door to the opposite end of the room. They approached tentatively, pushing it quietly open. Looking through, the next room was the largest they had seen so far. It looked like a warehouse, made out of one of the underground areas of the bathhouse. There were three covered carts parked near the far wall, with more empty cages, loads of shelves for storing various things, and the faint conversation of a few employees. The shifting of some big creature echoed through.

“They said they were having something delivered,” Mayes muttered.

They stared at the door on the other side. Using the shelves and the other carts, they could possibly sneak through.

“Or just act confident,” Pandora suggested.

“Acting confident got us in,” Icarus agreed.

“Yeah,” Mayes seconded. “Exactly. Let’s go quietly, but if they see us, we’re meant to be here.”

They began pushing their cart through the room. Mayes was silent, but the others weren’t as skilled at stealth missions. They barely moved two feet into the room before they noticed a few people looking around at them.

A female voice spoke. “Hey…”

“Hi,” Icarus greeted.

“...Wasn’t expecting anyone to come in here.”

“Folvi told us this was the better way to go out with this.”

“Yeah, we’ve just got some parts that we need to take up,” Mayes added.

The woman regarded them. “Is that right?”

“Yeah,” Icarus grinned.

“Okay. What parts?” she pressed. The woman seemed to be a half-drow, half-orc, wearing a robe that didn’t seem local.

“There was a blink dog that had been dissected. And quite a few more of them. So, just getting rid of some of the parts that, uh, are a little bit… questionable.”

Mayes gave a nod. “Yeah, some of them are a bit past their best after all the experiments, unfortunately.”

“You wanna smell it? It’s  _ rotten. _ I’m gonna need several baths after this. _ ” _

“No,” the woman replied. “Did you see which way Kondou went?”

“Uh, thought he went out…” Icarus looked around for inspiration. “Well… no. We saw him leave, but...”

The woman stared at them. “Hm. Interesting.”

Suddenly, she brandished a staff, pulling it from one of the carts. Icarus and Mayes lit up with her fairy fire as the other two men who had been relaxing against the carts stood quickly to grab their weapons.

The half-drow woman was clearly a spellcaster, while the other men seemed like simple thugs armed with scimitars and crossbows. Pandora threw a fire spell towards the drow. The woman sidestepped the spell, and waving her hand, cast a defensive spell over herself.

Orion, his summoned sword by his side, moved straight for them. He swung at the half-drow, missing the shot completely before managing to strike one of the thugs, the blade cutting through rough looking cheap armour.

Icarus summoned his own spiritual weapon, sending it slashing towards the mage. As it hit, Icarus raised his crossbow, firing a bolt that whizzed past her head and embedded into the wall behind her. The woman looked over her shoulder and grinned, excited by the challenge.

Mayes ran across the warehouse, swinging their blade and clashing it against the woman’s mage armour. One of the bandits swung into Mayes with their scimitar as they half dodged. The other went to do the same with Orion, but the gladiator knocked the attack away with his own weapon.

Pandora fired off three shots, landing one on each of their attackers. The half-drow woman was slightly scorched, while both of the thugs dropped to the ground, their faces burning before they fell, unmoving.

“Hell yeah, Pandora!” Mayes cheered.

As the half-drow woman saw her allies fall, she began to move her hands to send out another spell. As she tried, Pandora shot out a counterspell, and the woman’s magic fizzled away.

The woman started running towards the door. Orion tried to get her as she escaped, but missed. Mayes managed to strike her as she fled, but she was almost at the far door. Orion sent out another spell that landed in the woman’s back as Icarus ran after her, his spiritual weapon giving chase. He shot a small bolt of lightning after her, but she managed to duck and weave, looking back over her shoulder at the four of them as she fled.

“You’ll never stop him anyway!” she called.

Icarus grinned. “Well tell your boss that Leonida sends his regards.”

The woman’s eyes widened slightly for a moment before her face returned to a cold mask.

Mayes charged forward and she swung her staff around, knocking their weapon away. Pandora stepped forwards, firing off another spell. The woman was staggering towards the door, moving a few feet further before disappearing into the air, and reappearing farther down hall before sprinting away.

“We need to go that way anyway!” Pandora urged. “Come on, come on!”

“Pull the cart!” Mayes called.

They started to run, pushing the cart as they did. Various jars and crates flashed past them as they ran, with tools for repairing things, weaponry, and low quality looking food on the shelves. A ramp led upwards through the door. They saw an open hole where the brazier was pushed across before the woman took another misty step out of the escape hatch.

Pushing the cart upwards was quite heavy. As they got it to the top, reaching the bathhouse, the woman was gone.

Orion panted. “Damn…”

“She’s seen our faces,” Pandora fretted.

“...So has Kondou, to be fair.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve seen his,” Icarus returned. “Come on, let’s get these babies back home.”

“At least we got something done.”

“We got evidence. While we get these back, will you go tell the guards?”

“About this place? Yeah.”

“Bring them here immediately so they can start dealing with that.”

“Will do.”

Orion’s disguise dropped, and he started running through the hole in the bathhouse.

Icarus looked back to the others. “That was a lot.”

“Come on,” Mayes beckoned. “Let’s just sort this out. You know where the hole is.”

“Yeah.”

The trio rolled the cart to the hole, and they headed through the vaults of the underground bathhouse back into the Temple of Sune and up the next steps. It took all three of them to push the cart, but they managed to slowly bump it over the staircase to the top.

They breathed in fresh air for the first time in over an hour as they stood in the courtyard of the ruined bathhouse.

“Come on, little ones,” Icarus beckoned. “Out you get.”

The babies skittered out of the cart.

“Stick with us?”

“Yeah, we’ll show you the way,” Mayes offered.

The babies followed behind them. The trio made their way back, weaving through the streets in the dark to the hole where they slunk down a rope, climbing back down into the trench under the city.

“We’re going in the sewers?” Pandora cringed.

“Yeah, that’s why we had to have a bath earlier,” Mayes apologized.

Pandora covered her face with her hands, taking a moment before resigning herself to it. She climbed down the rope, and the stench was awful.

“It’s not as bad the second time,” Mayes observed.

“No, it really isn’t,” Icarus agreed.

Pandora’s face was contorted in disgust. “No, it’s bad…”

“I hate that it’s not as bad as it was the first time we were down here.”

“Come on,” Mayes encouraged. “The quicker we get this over with, the quicker we can get home.”

“Yeah.”

They carried on down the tunnels until they could once again see the hulking shape of the giant behir.

Icarus gestured the hatchlings forward. “There’s your mama.”

“Evening,” Mayes greeted. “We got them.”

The mother lifted her head, looking at them in the dark. “You have my gratitude.”

“If you tell them to stay still, we can cut the tags off.”

She hissed at the babies in Draconic, and the trio of students moved to cut off the tags.

“You gonna follow us out of the city?” Icarus prompted.

The mother stared at them. “Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you,” Mayes replied.

The trio started making their way through the tunnels. It took quite a long time. First, they had to find their way to the main trench, a dry path that extended all the way from the ocean to the east gate of the city. It took them hours to walk the trench until they arrived at the countryside, outside the city walls. Moonlight streamed in through the end of the tunnel, and the behir gathered her babies on her back. Reaching the edge of the trench, she looked up at the sky, and turned back to them, bowing her head. “I can take it from here.”

“I’m sure you can,” Mayes returned.

“Look after yourself,” Icarus advised.

The behir quickly scuttled up the wall of the trench and out into the land beyond.

The trio sighed. It was the middle of the night.

“We did a good thing,” Mayes declared.

“Yeah,” Icarus yawned. “Come on, let’s go home.”

“Yeah. You guys okay?”

“Tired. Tired, is all. Pandora?”

She pushed back her hair, looking away. “Can we leave, please?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

They started heading home, picking their way out of the trench and hiking back through the path to Erran’s city gates. The guards stationed there gave them strange looks, but they nodded politely as they noticed the trio’s demeanour, asking if they needed any help.

“Just a taxi,” Icarus replied.

The guards paid for it. One held out a hand. “Get up here.”

They helped the trio up onto the cart.

“We’re going back to Delphos,” Icarus informed the driver.

At that, the guards looked a bit more understanding, and they sent the trio on their way.

It was very, very late by the time they rolled back outside the steps of Delphos. The three of them headed to the bathhouse. It was completely empty at this time of night, and they washed off in silence with Icarus dozing off slightly under the water before they went their separate ways to their beds.

They didn’t dream.

  
  


The morning of the third of Nevreyn rolled around. Icarus did not go for his early jog, spending the day studying for exams instead. All three of them slept in. They didn’t have any exams for a few more days, but tomorrow, the Lords of Vishima would arrive. This was their last day of rest before the contract began, followed by exams, and followed again by the third task.

Mayes practiced their airs and graces in front of a mirror for a bit before going off to see Citra. They found her in her office.

Mayes knocked on the door, making their way in.

“Come on in, Mayes,” she greeted.

“Citra,” Mayes sat. “I just wanted to… ask you for some advice.”

“Of course?”

“I, I don’t know if you’ve heard from Sebaste or anything, but we’ve… taken up a contract showing the Lords of Vishima around. Tomorrow.”

“I see…” she sat up a bit straighter in her seat.

“And… Obviously, I’ve told you everything from home, and… now I have more reason to believe that there’s… well, frankly, evil within them, from what Daichi told me.”

“Yes, as you explained to me.”

“I just…”

“Come on, out with it.”

“How would you approach dealing with them? How would… I’m not gonna  _ do _ anything, I don’t have evidence, or anything like that, but… what’s your advice for an approach to maybe… coax some slipping of the tongue?”

Citra tilted her head. “Mayes… I need you to understand something. Whilst you’re dealing with foreign Lords on Delphos’s time, you are to treat them  _ exactly _ how your contract states.”

Mayes bowed their head. “Okay.”

“No coaxing of information.”

“Okay.”

“No misleading. There will come a time when your personal issues here will be something that you need to tackle, but you need to learn to separate personal interests and work. This is a very important part of what you’ve been trained to do here. It doesn’t matter what the contract is, you do not let personal interests cloud your mind. If this contract is to show them around the city, show them a good time, that is all you do. You understand me?”

“I understand.”

“Good. Besides that… just keep an ear open.”

“Okay.”

“Sometimes, when people are shown a good time… the tongue happens to slip anyway. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

Mayes smiled. “Thanks Citra.”

“Don’t thank me. It’s the advice anyone would give.”

“I know. But, I appreciate that you’re… I appreciate that we can talk to each other like that.”

A slight look of reservation and concern flicked over Citra’s face, but she maintained a polite smile. “Are you doing that with your friends?”

“Yeah. We make a good team, so…”

“Good. Just don’t go getting into any trouble.”

“Not aiming to.”

“Good.”

“I’ll catch you later.”

She let them go. Mayes put their thoughts of espionage to the side, taking some time to revise instead.

  
  


Icarus headed down to the front desk, asking after the local news, but nobody had any information on the smugglers. The story on everyone’s minds was the death of the Armiger, with nothing else to report.

Icarus walked out across the courtyard, spotting Alexis from a distance. Edging close enough to get a view of his expression, Alexis seemed to be engaged in conversation with some friends from Domus Imperitoria, but he didn’t seem to be contributing much to the conversation, and not paying much attention to it either.

  
  


Pandora was in a bit of a funk. She went out with Puck to the open grounds of the Academy, sitting by herself for a bit. At some point in the afternoon, a younger student from Medeis came up to her, informing her that Alexander had her exam results ready.

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

She went to his office.

“It’s open,” Alexander called, waving her in.

“Hi.”

Alexander was immediately concerned. “Pandora, you look exhausted. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Long few days.”

“I wanted to tell you that your Advanced Alchemy exam couldn’t have gone better,” he smiled.

Pandora gave a weak nod. “That’s good.”

“...You don’t seem pleased.”

“It seems like a lifetime ago,” she admitted.

“Come sit down,” he beckoned. “Do you want to talk about it? I haven’t seen you like this since last year’s exams.”

She sat. “I don’t know, it’s just taken a lot out of me, and… last night, I ended up doing things I shouldn’t have been doing, and… getting into things I shouldn’t have been getting into…”

“Like what?”

“Uh…” she shook her head. “Oh, you’d be disappointed to hear about it.”

Alexander tilted his head, smiling slightly. “I thought you could tell me anything.”

“I wish I could. You just said yesterday to me,  _ don’t get into any hijinks, this is the most important time of your Delphos career…” _

Alexander leaned forwards. “Has something happened?”

She hesitated, not wanting to implicate the others. “I wish I could tell you properly. It’s kind of complicated, but…”

“Okay…”

“I suppose… I ended up getting involved in things which… like, not me personally getting involved with them and such, but… there were some, illegal kind of activities going on, that… I happened to come into contact with… and… yeah, I didn’t see my evening panning out that way…”

Alexander nodded slowly. “I’m… not entirely sure what to say…”

“I know,” Pandora gulped, her voice breaking. “I knew you’d be so disappointed, and I’ve been thinking about it all day…”

“I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed. Your career, once you leave Delphos, which will be soon enough… is gonna land you in all sorts of unexpected positions. And, to be honest, being able to think on your feet is going to be an important skill. And whilst I can’t say anything about getting up to illegal activities, even by proxy… you seem to be in one piece.”

“I don’t know, like… they’ve seen my face now,” she continued. “And what kind of reputation is that to have? That’s like, a permanent black mark on your record. Like, this was the time to just be focusing in on the exams, and just… staying out of any trouble- ”

“Pandora, look at me.” Alexander crouched down in front of where she sat. “This sounds serious. There are more important things in life than your exams, or Delphos Academy. You don’t have to tell me what’s going on, but if you’re in some sort of trouble…”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, sniffing back tears. “Maybe. Sorry, long day.”

“It’s okay. You’ve got me worried now,” he turned, heading over to the table to make tea.

“Sorry!”

He picked up the teapot, pouring out a cup for her and bringing it over. “You said  _ they’ve seen your face now… _ who are these people?”

“Bad people. Some sort of smuggling ring.”

“Is this something to do with… you said you fought off those smugglers on the way back from one of your contracts?”

“Yeah, I think they’re the same people.”

“In that case, you know you have our protection.”

Pandora took a shaky breath. “I’m scared.”

“I’ll see what we can do, if anything, but I promise you nothing’s going to happen to you. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”

She gulped. “Yeah, thanks…”

“Have the city guard been alerted?”

“Yeah, they know about it. With any luck they’re going in to shut it all down, but… there are some powerful people under there, I think.”

“Okay. That’s something, at least. Here,” he pulled out an Instant Comfort potion, sitting it on the table. “To replenish the one I asked you to drink yesterday.”

“You didn’t need to do that!”

“It’s okay.”

“Like you said, I’m gonna get addicted to these things,” she laughed softly.

“Just don’t drink them too often. Tea first, before you turn to any sort of potion.”

“Okay,” she smiled.

“Now, I called you here to speak about your results from yesterday. I know it seems to pale in the face of an illegal smuggling ring, and city guards,” he ran a hand through his hair, looking a bit frazzled.

“Yeah, sorry…”

“But, you didn't miss a single mark.”

“That’s something, at least.”

“You got 100% on your exam.”

Pandora gasped. “No way…”

“And, I don’t know whether this was explained to you over the course of the project, but you get to keep the product that you’ve produced.”

“Really? Oh wow, okay. That’s useful.”

“So, I present to you…” he went back to his desk, picking up a box and opening it. Pandora saw four of her five arcane explosives inside. “Obviously, one had to be expended to pass the exam…”

“Yes, to test it.”

“But- ”

“Was it okay? Like, no one got hurt or anything?”

“No one got hurt. It was incredible,” he smiled.

Pandora beamed.

“Incredibly imaginative, inventive, I’m… I’m so pleased.”

“Thanks,” she giggled.

“I feel like if nothing else, you could make a fortune patenting this and selling it.”

“Well, maybe I’ll do that to pay off my debts,” she teased.

“At least you have those, for now, should any… illegal smugglers come your way.”

“Yeah,” she sniffed again. “Yeah… Thanks.”

“You’re safe here in the school. You know that, right? If nothing else.”

“Yeah. For the next couple of weeks,” she shrugged.

“...I’m sorry, Pandora.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. I walked into this situation.”

“Yes, but if there’s anything I can do at all, at any point, not just now… okay?”

“You’re the best,” she sighed.

“Well actually, you’ve got me rather stumped on what to suggest.”

“No sorry, it’s not really an arcane puzzle to solve or anything…”

He chuckled. “Well, what I wanted to say is if there’s anybody who could use a little… don’t worry about it, I didn't say anything… you’ve got two weeks left here.”

“Yeah, it’s gone fast.”

“Two weeks to learn a few more spells. On the school’s money. I suggest you apply yourself to finding something you might want to learn.”

She laughed a bit. “Yeah. I’ll see what’s on offer.”

“Drink your tea. I’ve got papers to grade, but you’re welcome to stay here.”

Alexander sat at his desk with his tea, flicking through papers. Pandora sat with him in comfortable silence.

  
  


Quite late in the afternoon, Sebaste called the three of them to discuss the contract. “Come in, come in… your new contract starts tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Mayes nodded, taking a seat next to Icarus.

“Yes,” Pandora echoed, taking her place a bit aside from the other two.

“As you’re aware,” Sebaste continued, “From tomorrow, you will be expected to meet and accompany three Lords from Vishima and the people they are travelling with. They have somewhat of an itinerary. Throughout the days, there will be some political meetings with members of the Erran council. But aside from that, they are looking to be entertained through the city. Shown around, shown the best places to eat, the best things to visit… you’ll be paid 130 gold pieces each. You’ll be expected to act as their bodyguards, should any trouble arise, but one would hope not. For the rest of the afternoon, I would like the three of you to work on what you propose doing with them in the city, and bring that to me for sign off before you commence your contract tomorrow.”

“Understood,” Mayes nodded. “Do you know which Lords are visiting?”

“I do, I have their names. Lord Ito Toju, from Tominada city…”

Mayes blinked. “Oh…”

“You know him?” Icarus guessed.

“That’s… that’s my city.”

“Oh!”

“That’s the big guy.”

Pandora nodded quietly. “Oh…”

“Yeah.”

“Lord Kosuke Sato,” Sebaste continued, “From the Morisaka region. And, Lord Ozawa Michio, from the Kosui region.”

Pandora looked back to Mayes. “Those two?”

“I hear their names thrown around,” Mayes replied. “I don’t know that much.”

The Morisaki region was the agricultural farmlands and mountains just outside of the main city, while the Kosui region was on the opposite side of the mountains. “Yeah, I’m aware of the regions, but I’ve never been there. I don’t know much about who they are.”

“Do we know what it is they are here to discuss?” Pandora asked. “Like, trade, or…?”

“I believe they’re looking to do some trade dealings with the council of Erran,” Sebaste replied. “And also, produce some sort of political allyship regarding the waters between Vishima and Kashima, and the eastern marshes, which have seen an increase in piracy in the last six months.”

“That makes sense,” Mayes nodded.

“And is it the governors they’re meeting with?” Pandora continued. “Or…?”

“I believe a few members of the council. As you know quite well, there is the case of the council seeking out a new Armiger for the city. I believe, whilst they won’t have any final say in it, the Lords may want to sit in on some of those meetings. You may find yourself interacting with members of the council as well,” he warned.

“Okay,” Icarus agreed.

“Okay,” Mayes echoed. “Best behavior.”

“Best behavior throughout,” Sebaste advised. “You are representing Delphos here. Apart from that, I can't say what else they’re up to. Just having a good time, I suppose.”

“Do we have an itinerary?” Pandora pressed. “Like, when they’re in free time and when they’re in meetings?”

“Yes,” he passed over the paper.

Mayes looked it over. “So these are the gaps we need to fill?”

“They also, I believe, want their accommodation chosen, and their catering… catered to.”

“I can do that,” Icarus replied.

“This will be for three days straight. Consider yourselves their… personal assistants, as such, for their time here in Erran.”

“Sure,” Mayes replied.

“They will be arriving at the docks shortly after the morning trade, tomorrow morning.”

“Okay. We’ll be sure to be there. Thank you for this, Sebaste.”

“No problem. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“We will get back to you with our ideas.”

Icarus tilted his head. “I’m gonna assume that we get a cart and horses to escort them around in?”

“Yes, we will be providing a carriage,” Sebaste explained. “It has been provided by the council itself.”

“Excellent,” Mayes replied.

“Thank you,” Pandora followed.

“Well, I guess we should go figure some fun stuff out.”

“Yeah. I’m sure they would like to go see the Maw,” Icarus suggested.

“Yeah, or one of the amphitheatres…”

“That’ll be good. Come on, let’s go chat that out then.”

Sebaste dismissed them, and they headed to the library to discuss, pulling out maps of the area.

“First off,” Mayes began, “how’s everyone feeling after last night?”

“I’m fine,” Icarus shrugged.

“Same.”

“Pandora?”

She was looking away from the others, thinking quietly to herself. “...Not great, honestly.”

“Okay,” Mayes nodded.

“Just… when Alexander said, hours before,  _ don’t get into any hijinks right now, it’s a very important time… _ and I end the night potentially on the hit list of a crime ring… not blaming either of you, just…”

“It was a lot more than I expected it was going to be,” Icarus admitted.

“Mhm.”

“And I’m sorry you’ve been pulled into it.”

“I want to help you. You know I want to help you… Sorry, it’s…” she sighed. “The stress is kind of getting to me.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“Suppose it’s a bit late for that right now.”

“Going forwards,” he clarified. “You don’t have to. Because I don’t know how much further this might go.”

“No.”

“Because I need to find out this information.”

“I know you do.”

“And I’m not expecting you to have to do that with me.”

She shook her head. “Honestly, believe me when I say I want to help you- ”

“I know, but you don’t have to.”

“...I do.”

Icarus gave a small smile. “No.”

“I’m gonna say,” Mayes began, “I think with everything that’s going on with the three of us, and… whatever destiny or fate has planned… it’s… I have a suspicion we’re going to be dealing with worse than underground crime rings whether we like it or not.”

“Yeah.”

“And, yeah I agree, last night was… much more than we could have anticipated it would be. And again, I’m sorry, same as Icarus, but… We need to be prepared to face worse and unexpected things.”

“But I get, if it’s too much already, you don’t have to involve yourself that deeply into more personal affairs.”

“It’s like Mayes said,” Pandora replied. “We’re… linked by destiny, or whatever. So I feel like… it’s just going to keep dragging us in. I guess I just didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. And like this.”

There was a bit of a pause as they sat in the library.

“But…” Mayes continued, “I know, one hundred percent, that I can rely on both of you guys. In most any situation, I trust you guys so much. And… I just feel like, as long as we stick together… we’ve got each other.”

Pandora swallowed. “Yeah…”

“If… If destiny wrote us together, we have to believe it’s for some sort of reason, and that we can do something good.”

“I mean, we’ve got plenty to give to the Brotherhood, at this point.”

“But I’m gonna be looking through all that information before I hand it over myself,” Icarus declared, looking determined. There was another pause before Icarus relaxed, looking out over the papers. “So where should we take these guys?”

“Okay,” Mayes clapped their hands. “What are the best restaurants?”

Icarus listed off his favorites, and Mayes scribbled out the ones they immediately disagreed with.

Icarus tutted. “I get it, they’re expensive people, but that doesn’t mean expensive is the best, you know?”

“Are they gonna want to taste authentic cuisine?” Pandora wondered. “Or are they gonna want something that they’re comfortable with, from home?”

“You know what, let’s give them a bit of both,” Mayes decided. “And then, if they prefer one over the other, we can adjust the schedule.”

“And then, the amphitheatre?”

“I feel like that’s a little bit more classy than the Maw, I don’t know how quickly we could swing box tickets for them…”

“I’m sure if we tell them the Lords of Vishima are coming…”

Sebaste had informed them that the budget for this was on the city, not the school. The city was entertaining foreign dignitaries, and they were free to pick out the most expensive restaurants, the nicest hotels, and the fanciest catering in the best part of town. There were expensive bathhouses, water gardens, public parks, underground caves around the cliffs surrounding Erran with various tours through them. One was used as a music hall, using the natural acoustics of the cave to achieve an incredible sound effect. The trio set out a comprehensive list of everything they could think to do in Erran, with Mayes editing as they went.

They spent the last hours of the afternoon putting together the list, finding themselves quite distracted as they debated over the best things to do and the best places to eat in Erran. Throughout their time working, Mayes quietly checked in on Pandora, bringing her snacks and keeping her waterglass full.

They returned to Sebaste with their list. When they arrived, he presented the three of them with three higher quality uniforms to wear instead of their standard tunics. They were posh pallas in black with a nice trim.

Sebaste checked their list, seeming quite impressed with what they came up with. He said he would pass it on to someone to acquire tickets and make the bookings. “Very well done. I think you’re going to do great.”

“Thank you,” Mayes nodded.

“As contracts go, this one seems fairly simple. As long as you can mind your tongues, and put up with conversation from dignitaries.”

“I’m sure we can do that,” Icarus grinned.

“If my grandfather could, I’m sure I can,” Mayes followed.

“Great,” Sebaste smiled. “In which case, get some good sleep, and you will be meeting the Lords of Vishima first thing in the morning.”

“Thank you,” Icarus replied.

He handed them each a special Delphos pass they could use for meals, or anything the Lords wanted to shop for. It was all down to their judgement if the city would provide for the Lords in that capacity.

Sebaste told them to collect anything they needed from his office first thing in the morning before they headed to the boat. Then, he dismissed them.

“Thank you,” the trio chorused.

The group walked a bit aways from his office, and Pandora stopped them. “Guys…”

She wrapped them both in a hug. “I’m sorry.”

Icarus held her tightly.

“It’s okay,” Mayes assured her.

“I feel bad for being upset with you guys,” she sniffed.

“You can be upset. Pandora, it’s fine.”

“It was a scary situation,” Icarus agreed.

“Yeah,” she gulped.

“I got a bit blindsided by it, I’m not gonna beat around the bush there…”

“And I realize that…” Mayes frowned, “Some of my skills aren’t quite as honed as I’d like them to be.”

“It was a stressful situation,” Pandora repeated. “And Icarus, you being… like you said, blindsided, it just shows how much you care about something. I’m sorry, I...”

“Don’t be,” Icarus replied.

“It’s okay,” Mayes followed.

Pandora shifted. “And I’ve been having… trouble sleeping. Weird dreams.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. Like not…  _ that _ kind of dream… yeah, just weird stuff.”

Mayes gave her hand a little squeeze.

“Just been homesick. That kind of thing. It’s weird. It’s probably the exams and everything as well.”

“Yeah, it’s a lot of stress,” Icarus admitted. “It’s a lot of stress. Mayes said it earlier, but, we’ve got your back. Always.”

“I’ve got yours too. We’ve still got the third task to do together…”

“Exactly.”

“We’re gonna work extra hard on that one,” Mayes declared. “And we will!”

“Alexander said it’s gonna be like a… real life situation? So it’s not like a dignitary thing, like we did the second time. And it’s not something set up like the labyrinth.”

“Then… last night was good experience, for a real life situation, I guess…”

“I suppose…”

“True. Definitely got some places that I need to improve,” Icarus sighed.

“Yeah, I think we all do,” Mayes agreed.

Pandora frowned. “Being in a real life situation like that, it’s… putting things a bit into perspective? Like it’s all very well, doing spells and fighting in a controlled environment, but…”

“That’s not gonna be the rest of our lives,” Icarus finished.

“It’s very different when it’s for real.”

“Last night… When that person left at the very end… I bluffed, obviously. I said Alexis’s dad’s name… and she reacted to it.”

“Yeah, you did. What did she do?”

“She… her face changed. And she looked shocked, and then she covered it up, but… I think that Leonida has got some hand in it maybe. It might be worth asking Lex if he knows anything.”

“Potentially,” Mayes mused, “Though it could just be the mention of a High Councillor.”

Pandora raised a brow at Icarus. When she had met him during the carrion crawler contract, there hadn’t seemed to be any familiarity between him and Alexis, but the way Icarus spoke about him now suggested there was more to the story. “We didn’t really have a chance to talk, after the suitors task…”

“No, we didn’t get the chance,” Icarus chuckled.

“Um… why do you call him Lex? He’s… he’s been a jerk to us.”

Icarus looked away. “Well, he’s not always a jerk, he’s just… he’s in a.... hard position.”

“His dad is kinda tight on him, huh?” Mayes guessed.

“Yeah.”

“Did you know him before that day on the hill?” Pandora continued.

Icarus hesitated, then sighed. “Yeah.”

“Were you like, friendly, or something?”

Icarus weighed something in his mind. “Yeah, we were friends. Um, last year.”

Pandora nodded, backing down. “I won’t pry.”

“It’s a difficult one. Uh…” Icarus looked around, making sure the halls were empty as he steeled himself.

“For someone who used to be your friend,” Pandora continued, “He was a real jerk to you.”

Icarus took a breath. “We used to date.”

“Oh…” Mayes nodded with realization. “Yeah… bad breakup?”

“Eh… he wanted to keep it secret so that none of his friends would know about it,” Icarus explained. “And I didn’t like that. Because he would act exactly the way he acts now.”

“That’s fair. You don’t deserve that.”

“Yeah,” Pandora frowned. “That’s not cool. You deserve better than that.”

“But,” Icarus sighed, “Now I’ve met his dad, and…”

“Explains a lot?”

“Yeah. He, um, came up to me at the party to say that he didn’t want to win Cassandra’s hand, and that he didn’t want to be there, so…”

“I kind of got that impression when I spoke to him, but didn’t realize that you guys had history.”

“...No one does.”

“No one else will know, if you don’t want them too.”

“We’re not gonna tell anyone,” Mayes agreed.

“Thanks,” Icarus nodded. “But, I think that maybe he would answer some questions, if we put them to him.”

“Yeah, hopefully,” Pandora agreed. “I mean, I feel like maybe you owe him one. Or rather, he owes you one… at this point…”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

“But yeah, that’s good to know now. Didn’t want to pry, but, it’s good information to have about… everything.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Icarus gave a nervous chuckle, looking away from the others.

“So…” Mayes began, “Do you guys want to go get dinner, and talk over our fun next few days?”

“Dinner would be nice,” Pandora considered.

“Dinner would be really nice,” Icarus agreed.

Mayes smiled. “I think we deserve it. An actual, relaxed evening out. Not one where we’re snooping.”

Icarus’s eyes flashed. “I do… I do have those  _ I do what I want  _ cards, from the school…”

Pandora frowned. “Are we allowed to use them for this?”

“I mean, we’ve been given them tonight…”

Mayes tilted their head with a grimace. “We don’t have… the Lords with us…?”

“But we’re practicing our… etiquette…” Icarus needled. “Come on, let’s just try it.”

Mayes raised a brow. “Icarus?”

“Yeah?”

“Power corrupts people.”

“Yeah, I know,” he relented with a grin.

“And I’m not about that. If you go mad with money power, I will take you down,” Mayes teased, half serious.

Pandora watched the pair cautiously. “Should we go find Alexis first?”

“Yeah, sure,” Icarus agreed. “See if he wants to come out for dinner too, why not.”

  
  


It didn’t take long to find Alexis. He was leaving the library, alone, walking back to the Imperitoria dorms.

Icarus whistled. Alexis stopped, looking over through the dark.

Icarus gestured with his head, nodding for him to follow. Alexis looked around, making sure no one else was around before he approached. “What is it?”

“We just want to talk. Do you want to come out for dinner with us?”

Alexis eyed the three of them suspiciously for a moment, and then sighed. “Sure. Lead the way.”

“Sure.”

Icarus led them out, avoiding the routes of the Imperatoria students. Alexis lingered behind them as they walked, a behavior Icarus was quite used to, acting as if he wasn’t a part of their group until they had left the walls of the academy.

They moved through a few winding streets outside the academy, finding their way to the Menelaus Taverna, a smaller place not too far from Delphos. It was frequented by Delphos students, but the place seemed busy enough that they would be hidden, with only a few Delphos students at the other end of the room.

They sat at a small stone table. The place wasn’t particularly fancy, with cracks up the walls, but the building looked like it may have been nicer a decade or so in the past. A chipper server came over, bringing them snacks to place on the table and taking their drink order.

Alexis sat awkwardly beside them. “So…”

“How’re you doing?” Icarus began. “After… the other night?”

“Um… yeah, I’m okay.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, as okay as you can be after just… finding a man murdered. How about you three?”

“Yeah, same,” Pandora admitted.

Icarus gave a small shrug, and a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You know me.”

Alexis stared back at him. “Do I?”

Icarus sighed. “Yes. That was our final exam, that we were on.”

“Yeah, I figured that much when I saw all three of you. So what, that was all a big ruse?”

“Yeah.”

“You couldn’t have told me that?”

“No.”

Alexis shook his head. “Okay. Great. Is that what you invited me out to say?”

“No. We invited you out to chat.”

Alexis looked a bit uncomfortable. “Sure…”

They waited for drinks, a simmering awkward atmosphere surrounding them as a few pitchers of slightly watered down wine were placed on the table. Alexis poured one for himself, drinking it quickly.

Icarus lowered his voice. “Do you know the name… Angelos Kondou?”

“...Yes.”

“How?” Mayes probed.

Alexis looked around at the people in the tavern before replying. “Runs something of a crime syndicate, in Erran.”

Icarus nodded. “Is your dad involved?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

Icarus watched him carefully. Alexis was quite steady and firm, but he didn’t quite meet the triton’s eye.

“To my understanding,” Alexis continued, “The city has been… dealing with it, for, you know…”

“A while?” Mayes guessed.

“Yeah.”

“Dealing with him… in the sense of… aiming to get rid of him and stop what he’s doing?” Pandora clarified. “Or… making deals with him?”

Alexis frowned. “What’s your interest in this? Seriously. I’m not here to spill my dad’s dirty laundry in front of the three of you.”

Icarus shrugged. “Well, we’re kind of mixed up with Kondou, so.”

Alexis’s eyes went wide. “What? Are you fucking  _ stupid?” _

Mayes continued watching him carefully. “No.”

Alexis ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head.

“We went to one of his places last night,” Icarus explained. “And freed some of the creatures.”

Alexis’s brow furrowed. “What creatures?”

“That they’d been smuggling in and out?”

“Oh. I don’t know anything about that,” he shrugged.

“And he… made us fight in an arena.”

“So he’s seen you?”

“Yeah.”

Alexis let out a long sigh.

“What does that mean for us?” Pandora worried.

“Um… I don’t know. I don’t know the guy personally, but I can’t imagine that it’s good. As I understand it, he’s a bit of a…. Hell, I don’t need to be telling you this!”

“Okay, then don’t,” Icarus replied.

Alexis rubbed his face again, conflicted as he sat. “I don’t even  _ like _ you. I don’t even like you.”

“Yeah, I thought it was stupid to ask you anything. You enjoy your secrets, so. You don’t have to stick around.”

Alexis looked back at him a moment, letting out a bitter laugh before running his hand through his hair again. “As I understand it… he’s something of a permanent fixture. Okay?” He lowered his voice. “The council knows about his presence. They don’t deal with him, but… he has fingers in a lot of pots.”

“So they just kind of… keep his activity within reason?” Mayes guessed.

“Yeah. He doesn't cross the line, and they turn a blind eye.”

“Why?” Pandora pressed as Mayes scoffed. “Because it benefits them in some sense? Does he pay them off, or…?”

“I don’t know.”

“Or they’re scared,” Mayes suggested.

“I don’t think they’re scared. I just think that’s how cities run, you know?”

“Yeah…”

“Like, I dare anyone to find me a city without a thread of corruption.”

There was a bit of a pause as the trio digested that.

“Well, doesn’t mean it’s right,” Icarus declared.

“No, it doesn’t mean it’s right, but we don’t live in some utopia where nothing bad is going on- ”

“Of course not- ”

“There’s always going to be criminals, it’s better there be one figurehead and not a whole bunch of people waging wars in the streets of the city, right? Well, if he’s seen your faces, you better hope that he doesn’t decide you’re worth turning into targets.”

“We can hold our own. He ran away from us last night.”

“Yeah, he did,” Mayes recalled.

“I don’t know if I’d call that  _ running away,” _ Pandora frowned.

“Well, he’s a coward,” Icarus declared.

“He didn’t need to stick around. He thought that the dogs would deal with us.”

“Couldn’t fight his own battle,” Mayes agreed.

“Trust me,” Alexis interrupted. “He’s not a coward.”

“Anything else you can tell us?” Icarus asked. “Actually, anything about the Council you can tell us? Because we’ve got to deal with them in the next few days, too.”

“Like what?”

Mayes took another sip of their drink. “Do you know if your dad is dealing with the visiting dignitaries from Vishima?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Great.”

“No, he doesn’t do much in the way of foreign policy stuff.”

“That’s good to know,” Icarus sighed, relieved. “I don’t think I could stand being in a room with him again so soon.”

“You’re probably looking at dealing with, um…” Alexis thought, leaning on one hand as he stared off. “...High Councilor Arkud, for that. And, um, Adamos.”

“Busy, busy, busy…”

Alexis looked over the three of them in disbelief. “What the hell are you three doing dealing with Kondou in an underground arena?”

Icarus answered truthfully. “We needed proof that they had killed a griffon rider. Trying to poach it.”

“Okay…? Is this a school thing, or…?”

“No, this is very personal.”

“Okay, then I don’t want to know anything else about it.”

“That’s fair,” Mayes shrugged.

Icarus went to take another sip of his drink, and then paused. “Please tell me you’ve realized that my name isn’t actually Antoni…?”

“Well, yeah,” Alexis deadpanned. “I got that with the whole,  _ you lied to me about who you were _ thing.”

“Good.”

“And it’s a terrible name for you anyway.”

“Yeah, I think so too.”

The pair shared a small chuckle before the awkwardness descended again.

Pandora piped up. “How are  _ you _ doing?”

Alexis looked slightly affronted to be asked that question. “Um… Between that whole mess at Krieos’s place, and not making it into my final exams this year, yeah. I’m doing great.”

“You don’t have to deal with it on your own.”

A long, long moment of silence passed.

“It’s probably not a good look for me,” Alexis finally replied. “To socialize with you guys.”

“Do the people you usually socialize with ask how you’re doing?” Mayes returned.

“...No.”

Icarus turned to Mayes. “Kind of sounds like fake friends, doesn’t it?”

“I know,” Mayes replied, still staring back at Alexis. “I just want him to admit it.”

“He doesn’t have to admit anything,” Pandora hushed them.

“Thank you,” Alexis replied.

“I was just trying to get across that maybe you should… get to know some people who care about who you are,” Mayes needled.

Alexis grew bitter, his tone sarcastic. “Hm, trying to push me into admitting I have fake friends? That doesn’t really come across as you caring. Comes across as you just trying to get smug about it.”

“I’m not smug about anything.”

“You’re smug about plenty.”

“Not here.”

“Look, I’ll just… stay out of your business, okay?”

“Well, like it or not, Lex,” Icarus replied, “We’re still gonna be there. You know, around.”

“Not for long. I know the three of you are probably gonna graduate with flying colors.”

“It’s not a certainty,” Pandora returned.

Alexis cleared his throat, leaning back from the table. “Well, I hope you do. So you can just get out of my space permanently.”

“Nice.”

They drank.

Alexis had one more, but he was getting very awkward as he sat. “Anyway, I'm pretty confident I have… things to be doing,” he eventually declared. “So, as nice as it was speaking to the three of you, being probed for information, I will leave you to your troubles. And… just don’t implicate knowing me, if you get mixed up with Kondou. That’d be great.”

He got up with a forced look on his face, chucking down some money to pay for the food. It was easily enough to cover all of it. He started for the exit.

“Goodnight,” Mayes called.

“Think about what we said, Alexis,” Pandora advised.

Alexis waved a dismissive hand over his shoulder, and left.

“That went great,” Pandora grumbled.

“And the worst of it is, he’s actually a really nice person,” Icarus lamented.

“What happened?”

“That’s how he is in front of others.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Mayes replied.

“That’s how he is, because of the pressure on him, from his dad. I didn’t even know he had a brother, so. Who knows.”

“Well, we should at least… we came out to try and have a relaxed time…”

“Sorry.”

“Let’s just try and… yeah.”

“I bet I can drink this glass faster than you can.”

“You’re on.”

They both drank. Icarus knocked his back, his gills flaring as he poured the entirety of it down his throat before Mayes could finish. They managed to pick the evening up a bit. A musician set up in the corner about fifteen minutes after Alexis left, playing a tune on their lute to liven up the tavern atmosphere. It felt a bit more lighthearted, especially without the gloomy presence of Alexis beside them.

As it grew later, more Delphos students trailed in while the regular patrons filed out. Exam students crowded the tables with excitement. “Ugh! You should have  _ seen _ the other task that I did…”

People slogging through their written tests commiserated while students both pleased and devastated regaled their tables with tales of their own exams. The tensions of the day managed to fade away enough for the trio to enjoy themselves.

  
  


After a time, Pandora spotted Veltash at the bar. She went over to him.

“Hi.”

Veltash turned. “Pandora, hi.”

“Hi, um, how did you do? Did you hear back?”

“I passed!”

“Oh, well done! Same. So, um, I don’t know if you have your stuff with you, I just got mine back this afternoon, so I have it with me…”

“I keep all my stuff on me.”

“Wanna trade?”

He grinned. “Yeah, okay, we can trade one. We did say, if we passed, we would trade…”

Pandora  _ very carefully _ pulled out one of her arcane flares, handing it over.

“Thank you…” he took it very gently, and reached into his bag for a long crystal vial. Shaking it up, a black and blue liquid swirled on the inside.

Icarus and Mayes watched on with varying levels of concern as Pandora swapped mysterious vials with the white haired albino Imperitoria student sitting by himself at the bar. Veltash wore a necklace with symbols of many Gods hanging from it, and he had been feeding a stray cat as Pandora had approached, reaching into his pocket to give it little treats.

Icarus leaned over to Mayes. “Is Pandora doing dodgy deals…? In a bar…? What have we done?”

“Oh my Gods, we’ve turned her to a life of crime, Icarus.”

Veltash noticed the pair. “I think your friends are staring.”

“Come sit with us?” she offered.

“Okay.”

Pandora led him over, and the other two chorused in greeting.

“Guys, this is Veltash,” Pandora introduced. “We did our final exam together yesterday.”

“Oh,” Icarus nodded, remembering. “Hi!”

“This is Icarus and Mayes,” Pandora explained, gesturing to the pair.

“So, another alchemist?” Mayes guessed.

“Yeah,” Veltash nodded.

“So…”

“Is that what you guys were doing?” Icarus clarified, miming the potion swap.

“Yeah,” Pandora smiled.

The pair sighed in relief. “Okay…”

“We agreed that if we passed, and if everything was good to go, we would swap.”

“Right, okay,” Icarus nodded. “It looked- ”

“You just swapping vials at the bar, Pandora...” Mayes warned.

“Yeah, well, I’m a criminal now, apparently,” she shrugged. “So...”

“We’re in our uniforms!” Veltash argued. “It’s not dodgy.”

“Actually,” Icarus mused, “That is a very good cover.”

“It’s not a cover. Anyway, here’s your poison…”

“Uh… what?”

“Thanks,” Pandora smiled, taking the glass. “It’s pretty!”

“Thanks,” Veltash grinned. “I call it the Sleep of Death.”

“That’s so cool.”

Pandora and Veltash explained the purpose of the potion to the others. It was a poison that had no effect for eight hours, but then caused the target to become incapacitated for twenty-four hours. During that time, the target would appear dead to any examination, but would wake up at the end of the twenty-four hours.

“That’s really cool,” Mayes and Icarus overlapped.

“It might be useful sometime,” Pandora agreed, pulling out her own vial. “I gave him one of mine, I’ll show you… Careful! Don’t even  _ breathe _ wrong around it.”

“It’s like an explosive, right?” Veltash grinned.

“Yeah, it’s- ”

“Why do you have that?!” Icarus yelped. He was leaning very far back, as was Mayes. The spherical vial swirled green on the inside, and as it caught the light, it looked as if there were bolts of lightning crackling through it. “That’s really… Should you be carrying that here?”

She put it back in her bag. “It’s fine, I’ve got it safe in here.”

“You’re very talented, Pandora,” Mayes declared.

“You’re  _ so cool,” _ Icarus agreed. “You’re so cool.”

“So now I have three of these, and one of Veltash’s poisons,” she summarized.

“And I have one of your arcane explosives,” Veltash chuckled. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with that.”

“Keep it safe until you need to use it, I guess. I need to come up with a name still.”

“So, are you three celebrating?”

“Just winding down. Needed some down time.”

“We’ve got our third exam in a few days,” Icarus explained. “And we’ve got a contract we’re starting tomorrow morning.”

“And then written exams before the third task.”

“And then written exams,” Icarus nodded. “And then the final third exam…”

“Yeah, we just needed to get drunk,” Pandora laughed.

“I get that,” Veltash grinned. “Mine is coming up, too.”

“Yeah?” Icarus smiled. “Which ones have you done so far?”

“Um, my first one I did The Tower.”

“The Tower?”

“Yeah.”

“What was that?” Pandora asked.

“We did the maze,” Icarus offered.

Veltash looked around. “I guess I can tell you guys, now that you’re… It was just this arcane tower, with all these different rooms through it. They were all timed, we went through them. Every one that we completed in enough time would make it easier in the final room, but there were a lot of them we didn’t get through.”

“Oh wow,” Pandora worried. “Did you get through it okay though?”

“Yeah, yeah I think so.”

“Good job,” Icarus encouraged. “Did you get your second one yet, or are you still waiting?”

“No, we’re still waiting. It should be coming up in the next couple of days, so.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

“How many on your team?” Pandora wondered.

“Three. They are studying, I just didn’t feel like studying. I’ve done so much studying…”

“Right?! After yesterday, that was the longest day of my life.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled.

“Cheers, I guess.”

“Cheers,” Mayes echoed.

Veltash lifted his drink. “Cheers.”

Icarus clinked his glass against the others, and made challenging eye contact with Mayes. “Back in three?”

Mayes shook their head. “I’m not going to try this again with you,” they grinned.

“Veltash?” Icarus offered. “Back in three?”

Veltash looked unsure, but he gave in. “Okay.”

Icarus drained his in seconds, leaving Veltash in the dust. As they placed their glasses back on the table, Veltash looked the triton over carefully. “You can breathe underwater, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Okay, so you kind of have an unfair advantage on downing liquids.”

Icarus opened his mouth to argue, then blinked, unsure.

“He’s right,” Mayes realized.

Icarus shut his mouth, thinking. “I guess that is the case, huh…”

Pandora looked under the table. The cat had followed Veltash over. She leaned down to pet it, and it hopped up into her lap. It didn’t look completely underfed, as many students had enjoyed passing it a bite, but it was a very skinny stray, and she worried she might break it if she held it too tight. Veltash scooped some animal treats from his pocket, placing them on the table for her. Pandora cuddled the cat, feeding it.

The group drank through the evening. Veltash was quite stoic, though he perked up as the evening passed, getting friendlier over time. He talked with a bit of a morbid fascination about a few of his past contracts, but by the time the night was up, a crowd of five or six stray animals had gathered. When Veltash excused himself, the animals trailed after.

Icarus watched the strange crowd head off. “Are… are they his?”

“I don’t think so,” Pandora replied.

Mayes looked impressed. “Wow… okay, well…”

“We should maybe get some sleep for tomorrow,” Pandora advised.

“Oh Gods,” Icarus held his head with both hands. “I’ve got so much to do tomorrow, and I’m so drunk…”

“I kind of just wanted to say, in regards to that,” Mayes began, “Now that we’re… um… Obviously, this is kind of important to me…”

“The big guy?” Icarus guessed.

“But I don’t know if it’s gonna be useful, or anything. And, I had a chat with Citra, because I was kind of looking at this from the wrong perspective. And she’s right, we need to be on our best behavior, and representing the city and the school. But… unprompted, if either of you hear anything, and it’s harmless enough to keep the conversation going, or you think that you can listen… I’d appreciate that.”

“We’ll keep an ear out.”

“Thank you.”

“Have you, like, felt anything?” Pandora asked. “Like, I thought I saw something of it last night, but…”

“The green eyes!” Icarus remembered.

“Have you felt anything new, with Daichi?”

“I…” Mayes frowned. “I don't really know what kind of power Daichi was talking about, or offering, but I just… in the moment, thought I would try and channel some of that. I just wanted to be more intimidating, and…”

“Well, you and Daichi being connected is a brand new thing,” Icarus reasoned. “Maybe you both need to continue to…” he threaded his fingers together, failing to find the words.

“I’ll figure it out, somehow.”

“Vibe energies for a while?”

“Yeah. I’ll figure it out, one way or another, but… I guess, proceed with caution, is what I’m saying. Because, even if this is just a trip for pleasantries, if these are the kind of people that would just willingly feed their citizens to some kind of creature… we should be on guard.”

“And you too, Mayes,” Pandora added. “Like, you don’t know what Daichi can help you achieve, so maybe… I guess, be cautious, if he suggests you try something new these next few days.”

“Mhm.”

“Is it…” Icarus stopped himself. “I don’t know if this is…”

“Just say it.”

“Is it worth not using your name? And just giving another one?”

“They wouldn’t know the name Mayes.”

“Your surname?” Icarus pressed. “Wait… they wouldn’t know the name Mayes?”

“It’s just a nickname,” Mayes shrugged.

Icarus blinked. “Wait, what?”

“What’s you’re…?” Pandora overlapped.

Mayes looked between the pair. “Mayes is just my nickname,” they repeated.

Icarus raised a brow. “I thought it was your name?”

“No… I signed your posters with my name!”

“You signed with a signature!” Icarus protested, drawing the squiggly line in the air. “What’s your name?!”

“Meiro?”

“Oh…”

“I just… Mayes is what I go by.”

“Suits you.”

“It just fits a bit more.”

“Yeah, I think so. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. My parents call me Meiro, it’s my name, but nicknames are cool.”

“Yeah, especially yours,” Pandora smiled.

“That’s why I could never think of one for you!” Icarus realized.

“Yeah,” Mayes grinned. “Because you were already using one.”

“Everything has been explained!”

“Considering we did the labyrinth together, I think it’s even more,” Pandora teased.

“Mayes in the maze.”

“You’re right,” Mayes laughed. “Mayes in the maze.”

“Doing amazing.”

“Thanks. But anyway…”

“Should we head back?” Pandora advised.

“Yeah. Let’s get some sleep. Bright and early tomorrow.”

Icarus whimpered.

They headed back to the Academy, saying their goodbyes as they separated in the quad to go to their individual dorm houses. Icarus was sure to cast a quick spell before he drifted off, the alcohol and dizziness lifting off him as he pressed his hands to his face, sober once more. They returned to their beds, getting a good full night’s sleep.

  
  


They woke in the morning well rested, getting ready around 5:00am as they put on their fancy pallas. It was one of the nicest bits of clothing any of them had ever worn. The school provided a carriage and a driver to transport them to the seagates. It was large enough for the trio to fit with room for three or four more passengers.

They rolled all the way down through the streets of Erran, looking out the tinted windows at the markets and passersby as people set up for the morning. The carriage was fancy enough to turn a few heads, but they managed to make it down to the docks.

Getting down there, they waited where they were told to stand, and watched the ship coming in from the water through the sea gates. It was a traditional red seal style ship, a galleon with a red painted hull. Stretched across the front of it was the face of a dragon. Lateen square sails came down in a recognizable Vishima style, with bright colors all over them. It held the attention of everybody there as it came into the docks, pulling up as the plank dropped.

The staff and entourage of the Lords of Vishima came down the Erran pontoon, making their way towards them.

  
  



	18. The Lords of Vishima: Part One, Episode Eighteen

They stood on the docks, watching the red seal ship of the Lords of Vishima arriving into Erran’s harbour. It was a spectacle of color and design amongst the fleet of dark hulled Errani ships with folded red sails. The painted face of a huge grinning dragon stared them down over the bow as the galleon came to a stop alongside the pontoon. Dock attendants rushed to the side of the ship to help secure half a dozen ropes tossed down from its high sides.

The gangway was lowered, and off streamed its passengers; a number of staff, the travelling party, and the Lords themselves, easily identifiable amongst the ensemble of travellers. They were three men, all human in appearance, wearing fine silk kimonos in elaborate designs. Atop their heads, they donned eboshi over their hair, stiff silk hats tied together with white cord. They each had a folding fan tucked in their belts.

Mayes was able to identify the different lords by their clothing. There was a dragon turtle embroidered onto Lord Toju’s silk kimono, jade colored rabbits for Lord Michio, and a nine tailed fox for Lord Sato. Of the three of them, Sato was the youngest. His face was extremely handsome, and free of the lines of age that marked the other two Lords. His expression was sour as he approached. Michio was clearly the eldest, his hair grey, and a big smile on his kind face.

Upon seeing Sato, Daichi felt furious and scared. Mayes felt Daichi’s emotions flood through them, bringing a surge of power with it, asking to be used. Mayes twitched a bit, settling themselves.

“Are you okay?” Pandora whispered.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

In attendance with the Lords were their personal guards. The guards were dressed in hakama trousers tied at the waist over short, monotone kimonos, and lacquered armour. Each had a long weapon strapped to their backs, wrapped in ceremonial cloth.

One, walking with Toju, was a female air genasi with icy blue skin, her white cloud-like hair pulled up into a top knot, some strands floating free and loose around her intricately painted face. She had an easy smile, and noticed the three students immediately, heading towards them.

Another walked at Sato’s side. They had dark hair tied neatly back, with handsome androgynous features under his face paint. His pointed ears suggested some elven heritage, and he had a particularly wide eyed look on his face, with a few rivulets of sweat rolling down his forehead and streaking through the paint. As he joined the trio, the students noted that he stunk of herbs, likely from the small pouch on his belt and another that hung around his neck. In one gloved hand, he carried a glaive. His other hand looked to be made of solid gold.

At first, it appeared as if Lord Michio hadn’t brought a guard. But after a few moments as the small group approached, the students noticed a number of attendants still at the ship wrestling with a huge travelling chest, trying to get it off the vessel. There was another painted guard, faced away from the trio of students, directing them.

Eventually, the guard turned. Although older and dressed differently to how they remembered, Mayes recognized their friend Jiro. His hair was much longer, tied up neatly, and he too had a wrapped up weapon slung from his back.

Mayes, who had been presenting as polite, sturdy, and prepared, suddenly looked off with a distracted grin. “I know him!”

“Who?” the other two chorused.

“That’s my, that’s… That’s Jiro!”

Pandora looked back towards the ship. “Where?”

“Um, talking to the people with the big trunk.”

“That’s Jiro?”

“That’s Jiro!”

Icarus beamed, shouting over. “Jiro!”

“No!” Mayes hushed the triton, putting out a hand.

The chest being moved looked quite heavy, large and ornate. It needed four men to carry it, and was easily big enough to fit those four men inside it.

Michio, who had been making the walk to meet the students with the other Lords, turned back over his shoulder. “Jiro! Don’t bother with that thing, come along!”

Michio turned back to Sato with a raised eyebrow. “Honestly, I don’t see why you had to cart that thing all the way here.”

Pandora whispered to Mayes as the Lords approached. “What is it?”

“Weird,” Mayes frowned. “I dunno.”

Icarus stepped forwards as their guests arrived. “My Lords, welcome.”

The group turned, and the air genasi guard broke formation as they approached. She bowed respectfully, and the trio returned the gesture. Clasping her hands, she addressed them. “I am Miyoshi Sho. Am I correct in thinking you’re our guides?”

“Correct,” Mayes confirmed.

“Yes,” Pandora echoed.

Icarus smiled. “I’m Icarus Pelayo.”

“My name is Pandora.”

“Mayes Hasagawa,” Mayes followed.

“Hasagawa,” she repeated. She smiled and turned, gesturing them towards the lords. “My Lords. Our guides from the city.” She turned back to the students, giving introductions. “Lord Michio, of Kosui, Lord Sato of Morisaka, and Lord Toju of Tominada City.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you all,” Pandora replied.

“An honor,” Mayes agreed.

Michio came right forward. He was a larger man with a big grin, bowing respectfully. “Oh, it’s so wonderful to be here,” he beamed.

“My Lord,” Mayes bowed.

Icarus grinned back. “It’s good to have you here!”

“Thank you so much, Delphos students,” he continued, “For coming down and agreeing to show us around your fine city.”

“Not a problem. We’ve got some really fun activities ahead for you.”

“We trust you had a pleasant journey?” Pandora asked.

“A bit rocky over the sea, but it was okay. No trouble.”

“And you’re here now,” Pandora smiled.

“We’re here now!”

“That’s all that matters.”

Behind Michio, Lord Toju stood. Slender and serious, his expression cracked a little towards Michio’s behavior as he rolled his eyes.

Sato himself remained stone faced, his eyes travelling across the students. He was absolutely silent.

“Lord Sato, Lord Toju,” Mayes greeted, bowing.

The pair of them gave slight bows in return.

“Right,” Michio continued, “I can’t wait to get underway. I think we should leave the attendants and the guards here, they can deal with the luggage, and we’d like to go to the council.”

“We’ve got a carriage waiting for you just here,” Icarus directed.

“Yes, we can give you directions to the villa,” Mayes followed.

“Fantastic!” Michio beamed. “Come along, shall we?”

He shuffled on forwards, seemingly ecstatic to be travelling out of Vishima. The students directed the entourage to the carriage, leaving about twenty various servants behind. Even as they boarded the carriage, attendants were still unloading luggage from the big ship. Someone else had taken over directing the unloading of the trunk as four pallbearers struggled to get it onto a carriage.

They sat in the covered ornamental carriage, and were led away into the city. The students sat on one side of the bench as the three Lords sat on the other. Their personal aides had remained behind with the luggage.

As they travelled through, Icarus did his best to entertain their guests. “In the distance, you can see that big building, that’s the Maw, where we have the gladiator fights in the arena.”

Michio leaned forward, gasping in interest. “Oh, I was so hoping you’d tell me about that.”

“Yes, we can totally go to one, okay? We’ve got this really good one- ”

“It’s on the itinerary, Icarus,” Mayes interjected.

“Yes, it’s on the itinerary, but that’s where it is! And it’s really cool…”

Michio leaned over Toju to look out the window of the carriage, slightly crushing him as Toju tried to escape. Sato, on the other side, appeared quite sour. He still had yet to say a word.

“And then, on this side of the carriage…” Icarus pointed the other way. Michio, squished between the other two lords, turned again. “...You can see the biggest, tallest spire in the distance. That’s our biggest cathedral. And…”

Icarus continued his spiel, and Michio listened with enthusiasm. After a short while, the carriage rolled up to the Errani council building, the bouleuterion. It was housed in the governmental district, rather close to the docks. They pulled up outside a large and impressive rectangular building with white and blue columns lining the front doors, with carved figures of previous High Councilors lining the entry hall, which they could see straight into from the outside.

They climbed out of the carriage and onto the street, helping the Lords down. With no pretense, Michio walked straight inside. The entry hall led into a long antechamber with stretches of fountains and plant life down the center, and stone benches for waiting against each wall. The ceiling of the antechamber was open, shedding sunlight into the area, though the ceilings at the sides provided enough shade for visitors. Standing inside, it was cooler than they expected, considering the open roof.

On each side of the room, there were two doors, and to the far end, one very large door. This door was open, and inside, they could see the council’s main debate chamber. Rows of tiered stone benches sat in a semicircle around a podium like an amphitheatre, while the roof inside was held up with beautifully painted red columns detailed with gold all the way up.

They headed inside with the three Lords, and after a few moments, they were met by three councilors in their official robes.

There was one older hobgoblin man with greying hair and a very strict look on his face, who introduced himself as High Councilor Aggrios Arkud. Persephone recognized Councilor Ilo Adamos next, the councilor her older sister Persephone worked for. He was a human man in his mid-fifties with sandy, swept back hair, and an authoritative demeanor. He was a bit cold, but there was something alluring and charismatic about him. Finally, Councilor Gelon appeared. He had dark green skin and a very friendly look on his face as he introduced himself and offered a handshake, standing quite tall for a goblin.

Introductions between the Lords and Councilors were made as the students stood respectfully nearby. Toju introduced Sato, who was still silent.

“I trust that everybody’s journey over here was good?” Adamos smiled. “And I trust that these three, some of our finest students from Delphos Academy, have been looking after you so far?”

“We’ve been trying,” Icarus smiled back.

“I have it on good authority that… Di Rossi,” he nodded to her, “You’re doing exceptionally well.”

Pandora stammered, flush. “I… um… not… it’s nothing...”

“It’s true,” Mayes interjected.

“We’re just waiting a moment for our aides, and then we can give you, my Lords, a tour of our building,” Adamos continued, glancing to the students. “If the three of you wouldn’t mind waiting...?”

“Of course not,” Icarus agreed.

It wasn’t long before another figure joined their group. Pandora immediately recognized the man as Roiseus Kyriak, her sister’s fiancé. Roys was wearing a simple chlamys and a choker necklace. He was tall, with short neat dark hair and pale skin, and blue eyes that appeared almost purple. He was clearly an elf with noble features, but standing slightly hunched for his height as if he was used to cowering. He waved excitedly, as did Pandora, though they both tried their best to remain professional for the moment.

“Councilors, my Lords? The others are ready for you,” Roys announced.

Arkud nodded, beckoning the Lords through into the main debate chamber. “Come this way…”

The students were left in the hall with Roys. As soon as the door was shut behind the Lords, Pandora flung herself at him. “Roys!”

He hugged her back. “How are you doing?”

“Congratulations! Oh my gosh, Persephone wrote to me!”

Mayes and Icarus looked back to Roys with realization. “Ohhh!”

“Guys, this is Roys! He’s Persephone’s fiancé! And, these are my friends from Delphos. This is Icarus, and this is Mayes.”

“Hi, nice to meet you,” Roys grinned. “So, you guys are showing around the Lords of Vishima?”

“Yeah, it’s a really big deal…”

“It’s a pretty big deal here too, everybody’s been talking about it for weeks.”

“Yeah. So, what exactly are they here for? What are they here to discuss?”

“They’re here to discuss some kind of trade bargain or deal, something that they just couldn’t sort out back and forth with letters.”

“That makes sense,” Icarus nodded.

“It’s not common though. I mean, we don’t get political visits that often, especially not from that far away.”

“Well, it cuts out the middleman.”

“I know that they used to come every now and then,” Mayes recalled. “Because my grandfather accompanied the Lords.”

“Oh really?” Icarus glanced over.

“Yeah, that’s how we had friends in Erran.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah,” Roys shrugged. “Adamos told me the last time was maybe fifteen years ago.”

“Sometime before that,” Mayes nodded. “But it’s not very often at all, no.”

“It’s got to be a very important trade deal,” Pandora thought, “If they come here to do it, rather than just do it by correspondence.”

“Yeah,” Icarus frowned. “I think the waters between here and Vishima are kind of… pirate-y.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, as far as I know.”

“As far as I know too,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah,” Roys worried. “They can be a bit dangerous… Which means it’s dangerous for them to even make the crossing, it’s gotta be a big deal.”

“Perhaps a bit fuzzy on whose bit of ocean is whose,” Mayes suggested.

“Do you like the building? I’m assuming this is probably your first time in here.”

Icarus sighed in delight. “It’s so cool in here.”

“It really is,” Pandora smiled.

“I just want to live here.”

“So, that…” Roys grinned, “Above and below the rooms, they’ve got this really, really interesting series of arcane ducts. And they maintain a flow of ice cold water around the rooms. So the air comes in, and the water chills the air, and it keeps it cold inside all the time.”

“That’s so clever!” Pandora gasped.

“That’s  _ so  _ clever,” Icarus agreed.

Roys chuckled. “Consider a career in politics,” he advised. “I’m serious.”

“Just for the cool air, more than anything?” Pandora teased.

“Yeah,” Mayes bumped Icarus. “You’re sick of the heat.”

“I  _ hate _ how hot it is here,” the triton admitted, rubbing his face.

“And then we’ve got these rooms at the side,” Roys continued. “That’s Leonida’s office, that’s Adamos’s office…” he continued to point at the other doors, naming off High Councilor Hammon as well.

“So what does Adamos do? His sector?” Icarus wondered.

“Uh, he deals with a lot of logistic stuff, a lot of the naval stuff…”

“Oh, the naval stuff? Okay…”

“I guess he would have been involved in planning their passage here, in some sense,” Pandora guessed.

“Yeah,” Roys nodded. “I think that’s why he’s… you know, there’s a ton of councilors, but, these three were involved with setting up this meeting and all that…”

“Are they the main councilors that the Lords will be seeing?” Mayes asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“I think a few more will be in there, they’re going to have that big meeting tomorrow morning, but…”

“Do these three always operate out of this building?” Pandora wondered. “Or are they based elsewhere in the city?”

“There’s a few different offices. I mean, the High Councilors…” he pointed to three doors, “Those are the High Councilors offices, and they basically always operate in this building. The others, there’s… you know, it’s all in this area, but there’s a bunch of offices down and around.”

Pandora, trying not to be selfish about it, looked around for her sister. “I don’t suppose Sephie’s here, is she?”

“Not here, unfortunately.”

“That’s okay…”

“If we’d known you were coming, we might have tried to play it the other way around so she could see you, but no. She’s handling all of Adamos’s work while he’s doing this.”

“Oh, so you’re looking after Adamos for the trip?”

“Yes, and she is looking after his work.”

“Oh, okay. But it’s so good to see you! I haven’t seen you for so long…”

“I know, you’ve grown up!”

She blushed, squirming a bit. “I don’t know… it’s nothing, no big deal… Just excited for your engagement party. And for your wedding!”

“I know!”

“You finally asked her, finally!”

“It’s only been a couple years!” he defended.

“Yeah, but you were meant to be!” she insisted. “Like, the two of you together, it’s the most sickly sweet thing you’ve ever seen.”

Roys gave a bit of an awkward smile.

“Well, congratulations,” Mayes offered.

“Yeah, congrats!” Icarus grinned.

“Thank you. I actually need to be getting in there,” he apologized, “But I will be back out shortly, and I will see you again in the next few days.”

“We’ll just be here,” Mayes nodded.

Roys headed into Adamos’s office.

Icarus immediately gathered the other two into a huddle. “Okay, so, it’s not just me? Those are the names? From what we were talking about with Alexis, and the Kondou stuff? They’re the councilors that turn a blind eye to all of this… crime syndicate?”

“Well, what do you want to do?” Pandora whispered back. “We’re on a job right now!”

“Yeah, but if Adamos is gonna be hanging out with the Lords while we’re hanging out with the Lords, we can keep an eye on him!”

“I guess…”

“Just kind of see what we can pick up?”

“Guys,” Mayes frowned, “We’re doing this by the book.”

“Yeah, but we can still listen to things! I got ears!”

Mayes looked up at the two fins protruding from either side of the triton’s face. “Do you?”

“I don’t know,” Pandora worried. “I know it’s stuff that we’ve heard, but like… it feels kind of personal now, because he’s Persephone and Roys’s boss…”

“So that means he should get away with things?” Icarus countered.

“I- no! But like… I don’t know! It’s just making it more complicated.”

Mayes nodded. “I just don’t think this is the time to- ”

“Okay!” Icarus relented. “It was just a note…”

“It’s good to remember, but…”

“There’s a lot happening right now,” Pandora finished.

Suddenly, Mayes felt a twinge, a twitch, and a slight reverberation in their head. It didn’t completely feel like being charmed, but something was definitely trying to take control.

Icarus grinned at them. “Getting cold?”

“Yeah… something like that,” they frowned. They could feel Daichi gripping at their mind, pushing them to act, but Mayes still had control for now.

“Do you think we could convince the school to put something like this into effect?” Icarus continued, still marvelling at the cool air. “Because this would be a game changer. Do you know how hard it gets to concentrate with how hot it gets in there sometimes?”

“I mean, if you’re susceptible to that kind of thing,” Pandora shrugged. “I don't find it so bad. It’s kind of cold in here.”

“It’s really nice!” Icarus argued.

Pandora stepped out of the shadow, warming up in the sun.

Icarus squinted after her as she went, whispering to Mayes. “Do you think her dad is like, lizardfolk?”

Mayes blinked. “I… I don’t know? I know she said her mom is a tiefling, I don’t know what she’s said about her dad.”

“No, she hasn’t said anything! She might be lizardfolk!”

“Would she not be scaly, then?”

“I dunno…”

Mayes stared after Pandora, still basking in the sun. “You’ve put questions in my mind, Icarus.”

“Good!”

“Let her enjoy the sunshine!”

“I’m not stopping her, I’m just- ”

“Go take a swim in the vents,” Mayes teased.

“Don’t tempt me.”

After ten minutes or so, the large door at the end opened again. The Lords and Councilors came back out, seeming jovial for now, except for Sato, still stone faced and silent.

Michio looked jolly as ever. “Well, this has been pleasant… I don’t know about you, but I really want to see our villa.”

“Yes, of course,” Pandora agreed. “I’m sure you would want to freshen up after your extensive journey.”

“Yes, hate to be out on the sea.”

“We can take you there.”

“Fantastic, exactly what I wanted to hear.”

“And then we can take you to get some food,” Icarus offered. “If you’d like.”

“I’m sure that will be… acceptable,” Michio returned, trying his best to suppress a wide grin.

The students led them out and back to the carriage. As they went, Pandora saw Roys at Adamos’s side and gave him a surreptitious little wave, which he returned.

They climbed back into the carriage, once again sitting opposite the three Lords. Michio sat in the middle, watching Icarus with excitement.

Noticing this, Icarus perked up. “Okay! So! As we’re going to the villa, if you look here on your left…!”

Michio was enjoying the touristy spiel, but it was clear he was also enjoying Toju’s annoyance with it. Mayes looked over to Toju, feeling a bit strange to be meeting the leader of their city for the first time. Toju noticed, and looked back, meeting their eye with a half-smile. Mayes bowed their head, and looked back out the window. After a moment, they chanced a glance at Sato.

Sato was already staring right at them. Seemingly unbothered by Michio and Icarus, Sato was looking them dead in the eyes.

Mayes looked back, and nodded. “My Lord.”

Sato’s gaze lingered a moment longer, and then he turned to look out the window.

  
  


After an hour of travel by carriage, they arrived at the villa in the northwest corner of Erran. It was higher ground, sloped up above the majority of Erran, which was tucked in the dip of the land. The wall of Erran stood at the top of the hill, with nothing but cliff face on the other side.

There were magnificent views out over the ocean, and though it wasn’t dissimilar to the villa of Lord Krieos, it only had one story. It was horseshoe shaped, encircling a sprawling courtyard with a private garden walled in on all sides. The trees were clearly old enough to have grown taller than the walls, and almost taller than the building itself. Plenty of greenery and water features were placed throughout the gardens. As they entered the courtyard space of the horseshoe, they realized the whole stretch of the entry path was made of a reflective pool of water, looking possibly deep enough to swim in. The villa was accessible by a series of stepping stones across the fountain pool. Around the edges were flowerbeds and more plants, giving privacy to the windows around the ground floor.

They got out of the carriage and walked in through the magnificent courtyard. Michio looked quite delighted, hopping rather spryly across the different stepping stones. The other two Lords followed, though Toju looked slightly miffed to have to climb across the stones.

Another carriage had parked nearby, with a few attendants still unloading the last couple of boxes off the top of the carriage. The luggage was made of many travelling trunks, and a few small crates. The large chest was nowhere to be seen.

Inside, the villa was attended by a number of Errani staff. There were floor to ceiling windows on every available wall, opened on shutters to allow a sea breeze through, keeping the villa cool. There were long, sheer drapes hanging down to cover the windows at night, now billowing in the breeze.

Icarus turned back to Michio. “Well, welcome to your home for the next few days.”

“Thank you! Oh, I do love the architecture here in Erran.”

Pandora bowed her head. “We do hope everything is satisfactory for you.”

“You three are doing wonderfully. I’ll be sure to sing your praises.”

“Very generous of you,” Mayes replied.

“Take some time to freshen up, and take a rest if you need to,” Pandora offered. “And then we’ll continue with the rest of the tour, and the things we have planned for you this afternoon.”

“Amazing. Well, we’ll send one of our aides to give you a knock on the door when we’re ready to go.”

“Of course.”

“Right, where are we sleeping?”

Staff members led the three Lords past reclining rooms and a dining hall down to the right side of the horseshoe. Another staff member directed the students to the left side. Down the left hall, they noticed the very large trunk sitting in a room across from where the trio would be sleeping. The door was slightly ajar, with other bits of luggage sitting around the main box. The room seemed to be a large, decorative hall, likely for dancing or entertaining, but now just for storage. As they glanced inside, an attendant closed the doors.

“I guess they don’t like to have their luggage in the same room,” Pandora thought. “Is that a thing?”

“I don’t know,” Icarus shrugged. “I guess they’ll just come get what they need.”

“Yeah, I guess it depends what’s in some of those,” Mayes agreed. “I really want to know why that box is so big.”

“Do you know what that is?” Pandora asked. “Is it a custom to bring a gift or something?”

“They probably brought some small token of appreciation…”

“Should we go see what our rooms are going to be like?”

_ “Yes.” _

Icarus gasped. “Oh, what the beds are gonna be like!”

“Are they gonna be like what they were at Krieos’s place?” Pandora giggled.

“Okay, stay cool, but let’s go real quick!”

Across the hall from the large room where the trunk was being stored, there were three doors. Each of them had a separate bedroom. They were probably even larger than the bedrooms at Krieos’s villa, with large marble floors and murals on the walls. There was a double bed in each room, with a large window open to the courtyard for each of them, and a row of beautiful plants and water features in the distance. There weren’t private bathrooms, but there was a communal bathroom on each end of the horseshoe.

Between the three rooms were two more doors, connecting the three of them. Icarus spent a moment lying on the cool marble floor before he noticed them, and immediately ran forwards to open the one to Pandora’s room. “Hi!”

Pandora laughed with Icarus for a few minutes while they excitedly explored their rooms.

In their own room, Mayes took a private moment to speak with Daichi.

“I don’t even know if you can hear me or anything, but listen. It’s not that I don’t intend to do anything, it just has to be done the right way. Please trust me that I can be subtle?”

They felt the strange grip on their mind recede slightly.

“Thank you. I’ll do  _ something, _ okay?”

Icarus suddenly burst in through the side door. “Hey Mayes, look! The doors open!”

“We can go into each other’s room!” Pandora giggled.

“... I mean, we probably shouldn’t do that,” Mayes returned.

“We probably shouldn’t… but we could if we wanted!”

“But we can!” Icarus agreed. “We can have one big room!”

Mayes looked off in thought, but they felt Icarus’s eyes still on them, waiting expectantly. “I’m not considering your proposition, I’m thinking about something else,” they replied.

  
  


Time passed, and the students spent a bit of time studying with the books they had brought along. After this contract was over, they would all have their first written exam together,  _ The Psychology of Body Language, _ on the morning of the eighth of Nevreyn.

“So,” Pandora pulled out a book. “In line with what we’ve been learning about the psychology of body language, what do we think about each of the Lords given the body language that they have been displaying? I think this is good for revision!”

They discussed. There was nothing secretive about Michio. The way he held himself was very open, and he was quite expressive, looking them freely in the eye. He was a friendly man, and a nice person to be around, standing with his shoulders back and his arms open and expressive.

“I get a good feeling from him,” Pandora concluded.

“Yeah, he seems really nice,” Mayes agreed. Michio was from the region at the bottom of Vishima’s mountain, where he governed most of the farmland. Though there wasn’t an elected government, and power was simply given to those with the greatest land ownership, Michio was quite beloved by the people in his area. He dealt with the harvest each year, making sure there was enough food for the island, and worked alongside his citizens in the farm fields. “He’s kind of known around the island for being a people person. He’s part of the agriculture district, so he just works with everyone.”

“That’s nice,” Icarus nodded. “I bet he’s really strong, then.”

“Yeah.”

They discussed Toju next. He was the lord of Tominada city, in control of general industry and the coast and fishing around Vishima. He was a very busy man, and the fact that he had left the city at all was quite shocking. He was clearly a serious person doing his utmost to treat the visit with complete professionalism, though there was something slightly nervous about him underneath the serious demeanour. While he was a bit endeared to Michio, there was none of that jovialness with Sato. With him, Tojo was straightlaced, standing upright, and looking perhaps even a bit nervous of Sato.

They couldn’t tell much about Sato himself. He had been silent, his eyes drifting between the trio, but they couldn’t tell if he had been listening to them or not. He had remained stone faced the whole time. Sato’s region was in the mountains, controlling the mining of iron ore and growing herbal tea. His family had been in control of that region for as long as Vishima had existed. While most titles passed around through marriage, the surname Sato had always been a constant in Vishima. The thugs that had attacked Daichi’s father’s store had worked for Sato.

When Sato had arrived, he had been rejoined by his aide with the golden hand, still carrying the glaive as they had immediately disappeared down the right side of the horseshoe. The wide eyed expression of his aide was quite fixed on their face, and there was something definitely strange about him.

“So, you say that Toju is the highest out of these three?” Pandora clarified.

“Yes, so, Toju is the Lord of the city that I’m from, which is the only city on the island.”

“Oh, okay.”

“And, I guess, he handles all the discussions with Kashima, our sister island. Whereas Michio and Sato just have their land that they own.”

“Right, okay. That makes sense,” Icarus replied.

“Is it just me,” Pandora began, “Or does Toju seem a little… tense?”

“Nervous? Yeah.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s kind of to be expected of his position, but I don’t know,” Mayes frowned. “It’s a weird kind of nerve.”

“New place, you know?”

“I suppose,” Pandora considered.

“How did you feel when you came here?” Icarus turned to Mayes. “Bigger city, bigger place?”

“Kind of nervous, I guess,” they admitted. “Or maybe he got seasick. And it’s weird… obviously, sometimes the Lords have shifted families by marriage and heirs and whatnot… but Satos have always been of the Sato line.”

“I suppose, just keeping it part of the family?”

“Like it’s always been a male heir?” Pandora guessed.

“Always been a male heir, always him,” Mayes shrugged. “I guess if there’s some shady dealings going on, one family is going to want to have that kind of power over a whole region.”

“I suppose it’s just strange that a Lord of a remote mountain region has that kind of power over the Lord of the only city. Like, the High Councilor equivalent.”

“Do you think he’d prefer to be the Lord of the city?” Icarus wondered. “Because he’d have more room to manipulate people, maybe?”

“No, there was never any kind of tension between the regions when I was growing up,” Mayes replied. “My grandfather didn’t talk about his time as a guard much, but, I feel like he would have mentioned something like that.”

“Well, people change, things change… I don’t know, I’m just speculating.”

There was a knock on the door. They opened it to the air genasi. She had removed the paint from her face by now, greeting them. “Hi. The Lords are requesting your presence again, so they can go out?”

“Of course,” Mayes agreed.

“We’ll be right there,” Pandora assured her.

They gathered their belongings and headed back to the main part of the building where the Lords were waiting. Michio was expressing his excitement to visit an Errani bathhouse.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Icarus offered. “We can get going right away.”

“That’s okay,” he beamed. “Back across the stepping stones!”

With almost childlike delight, he skipped back across them. They headed back to the carriage, with a second carriage now behind it for the aides. Meiko, the aide with the golden hand, Sho, and Jiro stepped inside. Jiro had noticed Mayes by now, but he was completely stoic. Despite the recognition in his eyes, his expression was very guarded.

The nine of them made their way to the Asylo Bathhouse. It was the largest and most exclusive bathhouse in Erran. Even with an expensive membership to the bathhouse, only a certain number of attendants were allowed into the communal pools at once. The exterior was not dissimilar to the ruined bathhouse they had passed through before, but this place was still in its absolute glory, the sandy stone in perfect condition.

On arrival, a wide, resplendent building with a structure of white sandstone stood in front of them, held up by twelve tall ionic columns out the front. As they stepped inside, they noticed that the floor of the entrance exquisitely depicted frolicing mermaids in intricate blue and green mosaics. Pandora felt a slight chill as she entered while Icarus sighed in relief at the cool air inside.

An androgynous harp player was softly plucking away in one corner of the huge lobby, the sound echoing through the chamber. A light stone concierge desk stood in the middle of the entrance hall, manned by two members of staff.

Icarus recognized a fellow Virtus student working at the front desk. Arachne was a third year like him, a female elf around 5’8”. She was slender but toned, with long white hair pulled back into a bun at the top and left long down her back, finished in a blunt fringe at the front. She had dark blue eyes and suntanned skin from Erran’s weather. Standing at the desk, she was wearing the bathhouse uniform of a simple white robe with gold embellishments. Seeing Icarus coming, she cocked her head slightly. The smile plastered on her face was just a little bit…  _ bitchy. _

“Hi!” Icarus greeted.

“Hi… Icarus…”

“How are you doing, Arachne?”

Pandora looked between them. “You two know each other?”

“Yeah, Arachne is in my year.”

“Oh! Hi, nice to meet you.”

“Incredibly talented,” Icarus smiled.

Arachne looked back to Pandora. “Nice to meet you…”

“This is Pandora and Mayes.”

“I know.”

Pandora gestured behind them. “And these are the Lords of Vishima.”

At that, Arachne straightened up a bit. “We should check them in.”

The other attendant started flipping through ledgers, signing the nine of them in. A few other attendants came forwards, asking the Lords what they wished to do during their stay.

While this happened, Arachne leaned on her hand, looking at the trio of students.

“So, how’d you get this job?” Icarus wondered.

“Oh, I’ve been working here for quite a while.”

“Well that’s great!”

“Yeah, it’s a good job.”

“Very plush,” Pandora commented.

Arachne tilted her head. “Pretty plush. It’s pretty prestigious…”

“Do you guys use the bathhouse?” Icarus wondered.

“Yeah, I get to use the bathhouse.”

“That’s awesome.”

“So, the three of you been up to much else besides this?”

“Plenty,” Pandora sighed. “Exam time.”

“Yeah, I’ve been really busy.”

“Yeah,” Icarus sympathized.

Arachne’s eyes passed over them. “Not getting into any trouble, I hope?”

“No.”

“No,” Mayes frowned, giving her a bit of a suspicious look.

“What makes you say that?” Pandora pressed.

She waved a hand, deflecting. “Oh, nothing.”

Pandora didn’t know her well enough to make a judgement on her character, but Icarus knew she was quite popular in Virtus. She didn’t openly look down on Icarus, but she had the kind of demeanour about her that suggested she knew something about him that she wasn’t sharing.

“So, what have you heard?” Icarus probed.

“Nothing.”

“As if you don’t hear anything,” Icarus smiled. “Everyone comes and talks to you about stuff, right?”

“Maybe heard a thing or two, but, doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, come on, you can share it with us,” Icarus needled.

“I’m actually working, right now, so,” she sat back, waving to the papers on her desk.

“Oh, so are we, but they’re all busy over there for a second- ”

“Oh just look at the time,” she waved over to a sundial across the room. “Maybe we can talk about it some other time.”

“Yeah, I’d love to.”

Pandora narrowed her eyes at Arachne. “We should go, Icarus. We have stuff to be doing…”

“We’re on a very important job,” Mayes agreed.

“Yeah, definitely,” Icarus relented. “We’ll catch you later.”

Arachne gave him a side eye. “Catch you later.”

The trio stepped away.

“That was weird,” Pandora whispered.

“She knows something,” Icarus declared.

Mayes frowned. “Uncomfortable.”

“Don’t know what, but I know that face.”

“You know that tone?”

“It’s the face she pulls when she thinks she knows something about you that she can use.”

“Oh…” Pandora gulped, growing anxious. “I mean, there is something pretty big that she could know about. I don’t know how she could know about it, but it’s pretty big.”

“Yeah.”

“How could she know about it?!”

“She probably doesn’t, just chill out.”

“Okay…”

Following the Lords, they continued deeper into the Asylo Bathhouse. Various archways and heavy wooden doors led through to several baths and pools within the complex. Many of the pools contained thermal water, pale green in color and scented beautifully with salts and herbs, covered with a thin layer of steam that simmered on the surface. The staff toured them around, advertising the different healing and relaxation properties of each pool.

As they walked through, the attendants explained that some of the baths were communal, though there was a cap of a certain amount of people who were allowed to rest in them at one time. One of the pools was a frigidarium, with water kept cold by arcane means.

“We suggest that you jump from one of the hot baths into the ice bath,” an attendant explained. “And that does wonders for the circulation, for the skin, for your overall health… and then back in the hot bath when you’re too cold.”

“I’m gonna skip that one, if we have to go in the baths,” Pandora mumbled.

Michio turned, ears perking up. “No, no! We have to!”

The attendants explained that there were a number of treatment rooms on the upper levels where patrons could receive massages, skin treatments, and healing assistance from a number of clerics posted there permanently. The entire building had a calm, peaceful, relaxing atmosphere. They weren’t sure if there was more than one harp player, but the music echoed beautifully through every corridor as the distant strings played.

There was one large private changing room with wooden lockers to store belongings in. The attendants led the nine of them over, gesturing to where they could enter through the bathhouse. The attendants left them with white linen robes and wicker sandals, and a table nearby that served mint-infused water with cucumber.

Giving a respectful bow of the head, the attendants let them know that they would be waiting if anyone needed anything. Despite the suggested privacy and exclusivity of the place, the eyes of the attendants were always on them.

Toju and Michio began disrobing immediately out of their kimonos, changing into their white swimming robes. Sato moved down to the far end of the room with Meiko, his aide. For the first time, they noticed Sato lean into Meiko’s ear and say something quietly. Mayes caught the sounds of it, but didn’t recognize the language. Sato spoke in muttered words to his aide before Meiko replied in the same language. Parting with it for the first time, Meiko put the glaive in a locker.

Sho dropped her ceremonial robes, letting them slide off her shoulders. Catching Icarus sneaking glances at her, she winked. She slipped on the sandals and the white linen robe, heading on through to the bathhouse.

Pandora turned away from everyone, tail flicking as she changed. Icarus stood in front of her, helping to block the view as she quickly changed into the robe. Mayes and Icarus stripped with no problem. As they stood facing the rest of the room, the pair noticed Michio head into the bathhouse shortly after Sho, while Toju side-eyed Sato, and quickly hurried after the friendlier Lord.

The Lords had packed their belongings into the lockers, and the trio did the same. Jiro had gone through without changing, and as Sato began to change, he shot them a warning glance to get out.

They got out.

As they did, they heard the slight murmurs of the same strange language. Mayes surreptitiously leaned over to the other students as they passed through to the next room. “He doesn’t seem to speak Common…”

Pandora raised a brow. “Who?”

“Sato.”

“What makes you say that?” Icarus asked.

“I was listening to them, and I don’t understand the language.”

“What does it sound like?” Pandora asked.

It had sounded like Common, but deeper, and the consonants were harder. “I don’t know, it just sounds like… words, but in the wrong order? I don’t know, it’s hard to describe.”

“Huh. I guess we’ll listen out, or see if any of us recognize it.”

“I guess we’ll listen out. It makes sense if… he hasn’t spoken, so.”

“No, that would make sense. Maybe he just doesn’t speak Common.”

“Maybe he just needs a translator.”

“I guess? It seems a bit strange, I thought that most people knew Common, but I guess not.”

“Oh well,” Icarus shrugged. “Let’s go swim.”

They headed out to the largest of the communal baths. It was mostly empty, with a few other patrons on the far end, and Michio leaning on the side looking very pleased with himself, his robes off and laying at the side of the pool. Toju was sitting near him, relaxing in the water.

Jiro was standing politely to the side at one of the baths. Sho went right in the water, clouds of hair floating at the surface. Icarus slipped off his robe and slippers, heading straight in as his fronds relaxed out in the water.

Mayes entered the pool, making polite conversation with Toju and Michio. As they did, they mentioned that they were originally from Tominada city. “I know how much of a busy man you must be, and it’s interesting to see you over here,” they nodded to Toju.

Toju appraised them. “Hm. Hasagawa, was it?”

“Yes, correct.”

“Any relation to Nori Hasagawa?”

“My grandfather.”

“I remember him.”

“He was one of your guards.”

“Hm. Made a particularly rude speech on his way out, before quitting his job. Very disrespectful man.”

Mayes blinked. “I… I know that he quit before I was born, but, respectfully, that doesn’t sound much like the man I know.”

“Then perhaps he’s changed after twenty years.”

“He does the gardens around the city now.”

Michio waved a hand through the tense air. “Oh, lighten up!”

Mayes turned to him. “I must say, Lord Michio, I’m actually familiar with your aide…”

“Oh, you are?” he grinned. “And don’t call me Lord Michio, Uncle Michio! Call me Uncle Michio. All of you!” he waved to the other students. “Please, I don’t want any of that Lord business. Everybody back home calls me Uncle Michio. Don’t they, Jiro?”

Jiro glanced over, and gave a silent nod. Michio turned back to Mayes with a wide grin.

Mayes nodded very slowly, processing that. “Yes… Uncle Michio…”

Michio looked very pleased.

“We were childhood friends.”

“Well, your friend is very good at his job. He could do with lightening up!”

Jiro didn’t respond.

Mayes leaned towards Michio. “You know, he didn’t used to be this serious. He’s really superstitious, or at least, he was…”

“He is, he still is. He’s been working for me for… maybe two years now. Trained very hard to join the city guard. Picked him out myself.”

“Interesting. I wonder when he moved…”

Pandora waded over. “So, when did you two last see each other?”

“Um, I said goodbye before I left, but, that was it.”

Pandora looked back over at him. “Do you want to come and join us, Jiro?”

For the first time, the group noticed Jiro’s eyes slide off to the side. It seemed as if he wanted to speak to them, but something was keeping him from it.

Michio turned back to Mayes. “He did mention knowing somebody in Erran before we came over here, so I’m guessing that’s you.”

“Yeah,” Mayes nodded.

“He mentioned knowing someone in Erran, so I said  _ why not come along so we could work on the trade deal. You could maybe see your friend…” _ he shook his head. “Uptight.”

“It’s been six years, to be fair, so…”

“It must be quite an important trade deal if you’ve come all the way from Vishima just to discuss it,” Pandora commented.

“Well, yes it is,” Michio nodded.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what is it you are hoping to trade?”

“Well… you would know this Mayes, but Vishima is a very small island, and, whilst I have a handle on the agriculture, I do a lot of farming in my region… we have an increasing population, and we can’t produce enough food. And we don’t want to… a lot of Vishima is wildland, full of nomadic tribes. We don’t want to upset the balance with Melora, turn more land into farmland, when we’re already such a small island. We don’t want to encroach onto their territory, so there’s only so much food we can produce. So, one of the main reasons we needed to come all this way for this…” he lowered his voice, but not low enough, explaining that the three Lords hadn’t been able to agree on what to offer in return for Erran’s supply of food.

“What was your suggestion?” Mayes asked.

“Well, I thought manpower. We have an overpopulation, we could help people immigrate to the mainland, some manpower in Erran. Help them find jobs, get food in return. We sort of meet halfway, balance the problem.”

“I’m sure you have plenty of skilled craftspeople who live in Vishima,” Pandora considered.

“Oh, plenty. The talent in Vishima is just wonderful. But, Tojo… he doesn’t want to do that. He doesn’t want citizens of Vishima being sent to Erran. Honestly, I don’t think he knows what to suggest. He always knows what he doesn’t want, but he never knows what he wants.”

Pandora looked over. Toju was staring. He could definitely hear this. Sato and Meiko were off in a far corner, talking to each other. Toju’s eyes had been on Sato entering the bath, but now he seemed focused on Michio.

Michio looked over, addressing him openly. “I think you want this all to be over with quickly, so we can get home, but we’re not in any rush. We can take our time, we can extend our trip if we want to.”

“Of course,” Pandora nodded.

“Anything to work out a fair deal for everyone, so Erran and Vishima both come out on top.”

“Of course, it’s a very important decision.”

“Don’t want to rush it,” Icarus agreed.

“And, perchance,” Mayes continued, “Is there any mention of the… the piracy problem?”

“Not sure yet,” Michio shrugged. “Not sure.”

“Okay,” Icarus smiled. “But yeah, I’m sure we’d be happy to accommodate you longer if you wanted to stay. You’ve got a lot of luggage with you, so you can stay as long as you need.”

“Exactly!”

“And there’s plenty to see in Erran,” Pandora offered.

“There is. That luggage was Sato,” Michio sighed. “He always brings far too much. And Sato was thinking of offering- ”

Toju pointedly cleared his throat, interrupting with a strict look on his face. “Michio, stop running your mouth. These students don’t need to be told any of this. Why don’t you keep the politics for the meeting tomorrow. Enjoy the baths.”

“We were just making conversation,” Icarus placated.

“We can leave you to it,” Mayes offered. “If you prefer.”

“I’m sure Icarus wants to try the ice bath,” Pandora grinned.

Icarus looked around for it excitedly.  _ “Yes.” _

“Oh, I want to try!” Michio stood up, looking giddy until Toju cleared his throat again, and Michio grumpily sat back down.

Noticing Toju’s continued stare, the trio headed off to the ice baths. Icarus swam down the pool under the water, passing Sato and Meiko on the way. As Pandora and Mayes waded down, they noticed Sato lying back to relax, but Meiko’s eyes were still wide open and staring. He licked his lips as they passed, going silent to watch them. Pandora and Mayes moved faster.

Mayes felt Daichi pummeling their mind, trying to spur them to act, but Mayes managed to keep the ghost at bay.

Stone steps rose out of the ground at the end of the pool, and they climbed out. Their skin was hot from the bath, while the ice bath simmered nearby. Icarus went straight in, a flush of freezing water covering his whole body. Mayes followed, and though it was horrifyingly cold for a moment, their body temperature soon adjusted from the previous heat, and it was blissful.

Pandora very unwillingly jumped in after them. There was a brief flash in her mind desperately warning her about the ice for some unknown reason, but she shook the feeling away. “Guys!” she chattered. “This is cold!”

“This is the best!” Icarus beamed.

“This is nice,” Mayes agreed. “This is  _ ice.” _

“Ice!”

Pandora was shivering.

“Are you good?” Icarus worried.

“If you want to get out, you can,” Mayes offered.

Pandora’s teeth were chattering. “Y-Yeah…”

“Go on, you lizard,” Icarus teased.

Pandora went straight back into the thermal pool, her tail disappearing behind as she left.

“How are you doing, lizard?” Icarus called over. “Better?”

“Mhm.”

Pandora swam off. Icarus turned back to Mayes. “You okay?”

“I’m okay. Feel like I need to try and talk to Sato at some point, but…”

“To Sato? But if Sato can’t understand us, then…”

“Then it needs to be with that…” Mayes opened their eyes as wide as possible, mimicking the aide. “That guy who’s with him. Meiko.”

Icarus replied with a wide eyed stare of his own. They teased each other for a moment, staring back at the other as they laughed.

Mayes shook their head. “I don’t like it, Icarus! That’s not polite!”

“Well maybe he just doesn’t have… eyelids. Have we checked? He’s never blinked with us!”

“It’s not polite to ask!”

“It’s not polite to ask… Maybe we should try to just… do it back.”

“No. No, don’t.”

Icarus continued to stare anyway.

“Just let it be,” Mayes pressed. “We’ll figure out some way to try and talk to both of them, I guess.”

“Why didn’t you try to talk to Jiro?”

“I feel like he will just brush me off while he’s around the guards.”

“When did you guys last speak? Letters, or…?”

“Oh, we don’t… do letters.”

“Why? You talk about him so much, like he’s a close friend.”

“Well,  _ was… _ I don’t know, we kind of…” Mayes shrugged. “After the whole… woods incident… we kind of fell out of touch a little bit, because it was his idea in the first place.”

“Oh, so you kind of blame him for it?”

“No, I just think he got spooked by it, and…”

“Because he’s superstitious?”

“Yeah. We got separated because he got spooked, but… I don’t know.”

“Should we go back in the warm one?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

They climbed back into the warm pool with Pandora. Sho, the air genasi, swam up and down the pool. She caught Icarus’s eye for a moment before swimming up to Toju. They talked slightly, but her eyes kept wandering over to Sato. Noticing this, Mayes realized that she seemed a bit smitten with Sato, but whenever she looked at him, Meiko riled up like a guard dog. Sato didn’t seem to notice Sho’s glances or Meiko’s anger.

Icarus was openly staring after Sho, a blissful smile on his face. Pandora snapped her fingers in front of him, stirring him from the trance. “Hey.”

“Hi?”

Pandora raised a brow. “You good?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Nothing, you were just staring.”

“...Oh. Cool.”

Mayes waded over near Jiro, offering him the chance to initiate conversation. He didn’t, but now Mayes was closer to Sato and Meiko. The pair spoke a few lines back and forth in that same language as Meiko continued to stare out, occasionally licking his lips. Despite the bath, he was somehow still sweaty.

Icarus turned away from the pair, whispering to Pandora. “Do you ever just… be in a bath with someone, and then you’re like,  _ I don’t want to be in a bath with this person…” _

Pandora grimaced. “Yeah, now that you mention it… I’m kind of half tempted to go back in the ice bath just because he’s not in the ice bath. And he wouldn’t be sweaty in the ice bath. Maybe it’s a problem for him, and I’d feel bad, but…”

“But it’s also kind of a problem for  _ us _ right now.”

“And also he’s kind of really creepy! With the…” Pandora stared with wide eyes, licking her lips.

Icarus ducked away, laughing. “I really didn’t like when you did that!” As he laughed, he turned, and noticed Meiko staring again. “Oh, Gods!”

Pandora quickly turned the triton around again. “He’s still looking!”

The pair did their best to relax, eventually approaching Toju and Michio once more.

“The massages you can get in Erran are something else entirely,” Pandora advertised. “It’s like a whole new world. And I’m sure after the travelling that you’ve had, something like that would be really beneficial for you.”

“Well then we should definitely try it!” Michio beamed.

Icarus grinned. “Yeah, they have hot cups upstairs, rock facials…”

“Let’s do it!”

“Sure!”

Michio got out of the pool.

Pandora whispered over to Icarus. “That means we can do it as well.”

Noticing that Sato had remained in the pool, Toju followed Michio out. While Icarus and Pandora went upstairs, they looked behind to realize that Mayes had remained.

“Mayes is staying in the soup with Meiko,” Icarus whispered.

“Okay…?”

“Sweat soup.”

“Sucks to be them, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

As Icarus gave one final glance back over his shoulder, Meiko was still staring.

Mayes put an arm up on the pool wall, acting casual. Meiko leaned in and said something to Sato, turning their stare to Mayes. The trio had definitely heard that language before, perhaps doing a contract outside of the school, but they couldn’t place it yet.

“I can’t put my finger on it,” Pandora frowned as they headed up the stairs. “Sounds familiar, though.”

“You know when you have a sense just  _ go, _ and your brain places it somewhere in a memory?” Icarus replied. “It feels like that. Like I can kind of see the memory, but I can’t place it…”

They headed upstairs for their massages. Downstairs, Mayes allowed Sato and Meiko their space to lounge in the bath. They noticed that Meiko tended to talk to Sato much more than Sato initiated conversation, and there was a slight expression of boredom on Sato’s face as he was forced to listen to his aide while he was trying to relax.

  
  


After the bathhouse, they returned to the Villa to get dressed up again before heading out to one of Erran’s finest restaurants to dine with the councilors and their aides. The entire restaurant was booked out for the occasion. Fifteen people were in attendance; the three students, the three Lords and their personal aides, and the three councilors with their personal guards. The attendants were spread out around one long table. Reclining at the side of it on kline couches, High Councilor Arkud sat at the head of the table.

Toju moved towards the seat at the other end, and then hesitated, ceeding it to Sato, who sat down without a word. Instead of sitting to eat, Jiro, Sho, and Meiko stood behind their Lords. The aides for Arkud and Gelon did the same, standing respectfully behind their councilors. As Roys went to stand, Adamos beckoned him over. “No, no, come sit with us here. Whatever Arkud does, you know I’m going to do the opposite.”

They sat at a long, thin table. Down one end, High Councilor Arkud sat next to Toju, followed by Pandora, Icarus, and Mayes. Mayes found themselves sitting by the far end with Sato. Opposite them was the goblin Gelon, while Michio sat opposite Icarus. Pandora was facing Adamos, with Roys by his side and next to Arkud.

The aides standing by the other councilors tried their best to hide it, but they looked slightly miffed that Roys had sat. Meanwhile, Adamos looked very pleased with himself, though Arkud was silently frowning at him, irritated but not wanting to make a scene in front of the Lords of Vishima.

As Mayes sat next to Sato, with Meiko standing just behind and still watching them as he had been all day, Daichi grew increasingly irritable. The ghost was constantly bothering at their mind, but they managed to bat his presence away. He had been trying to turn Mayes’ head to look at Sato, but Mayes was still in control. As a sign of good faith, Mayes did turn to look with their own free will, giving Sato a polite nod. Sato returned with a slight nod before moving on to catch Sho’s eye. The two of them lingered looking at each other for a moment, but Toju didn’t seem to notice. Looking between the two, Mayes sensed there was some unspoken secret between Sho and Sato.

Meanwhile, Meiko was still licking his lips. They could almost smell his sweat, and he now had visible damp patches under his arms on the robe he was wearing.

As soon as food was ordered and drinks were placed down, Michio leaned over the table with enthusiasm. “So tell me about the Maw! Tell me all about the Maw.”

Icarus happily obliged. “I will! So, they put on these huge productions, and sometimes they can make the stadium go into different shapes, so they have a whole different arena to fight in. Sometimes reproductions are done of old battles, or they do sky fights…”

Icarus continued talking as he ate, and Michio remained engaged, fully enjoying the opportunity to talk sports with the locals. Whenever someone called him  _ Lord, _ he insisted on  _ Uncle Michio. _

Down at Pandora’s end of the table, Pandora watched the politicians make conversation. Toju asked Arkud and Adamos how things were in Erran, and Arkud suggested a rumor that the Armiger was recently killed by some sort of beast man, a were-touched creature, or something similar. Adamos quite quickly hushed him up. “That’s absolutely ridiculous. We don’t have anything to prove that yet. We had a body, and yes, it did look like some sort of animal attack, but we don’t want to be jumping to conclusions and scaring people.”

Arkud grunted, looking a bit annoyed before Toju asked who the new Armiger might be. The councilors spoke about a few different candidates, listing off a few names from the military and navy, but as they hadn’t anticipated finding a replacement so soon, nobody was sure.

“Is it, um… pardon me for asking,” Pandora began, “But when it comes to choosing a new Armiger, is it done by vote, or do they need to… because I know they are elected in, being nominated, but once they are nominated do they need to be voted in by the council? Or do they need to prove themselves in some way?”

As Arkud turned to reply and address her directly, Pandora sweat nervously. “Well actually, we run a trial. A physical trial of sorts, and a series of tasks they have to pass…”

“My goodness…”

“And then a vote is made on whoever withstands the trial, should there be more than one person.”

“So Castor must have been incredibly capable.”

“He was,” Arkud frowned. “A good friend of mine.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Arkud let out a sigh. “It is a real shame.”

“He was a good man, I’m sure.”

“And a hard one to replace.”

The Councilors continued discussing, including Pandora in the conversation now, but there was nobody that Arkud personally felt could quite measure up as a replacement.

Cutting the conversation short, Adamos turned back to Pandora. “So, are you related to Persephone?”

“Yes, she’s my older sister.”

“I thought you must be. She has talked about her sisters, quite a lot. She likes to talk about her family, she says you’re doing very well at Delphos.”

“It’s no big deal,” Pandora blushed. “She’s the high flier out of all of us, she’s so great. I’m sure it is a huge honor to be working for yourself sir, but she puts in so much work, and she always tries her best. She makes us so proud as a family, to see that she’s working for you, and she’s such a big role model.”

“Well, she does work herself silly. You can attest to that, can’t you, Roiseus?”

Next to him, Roys sighed as he nodded. “Yeah.”

“She’s always trying to prove herself. She says frequently she wants to live up to your mother, and I think that’s very sweet.”

“Yeah. That’s something we all want to do.”

Icarus’s voice still permeated the room. “So there’s this really cool guy called the Lion of Erran, and we can get you backstage, because we know him- ”

The servers checked that everyone was okay with the menu for tonight, and Sato beckoned Meiko over. All of the guards had their wrapped weapons on their backs, but Meiko was still carrying the glaive as well. Sato spoke in the same unknown language to Meiko, and Meiko then turned to the waitstaff to request that Sato’s food be cooked very rare.

Meiko stared down at the appetizers on the table, licking his lips. He looked particularly hungry, and it was quite unsettling.

Councilor Gelon had been talking at Sato since they had arrived, discussing his role in city finances, and how wonderful it was to have foreign relations. Gelon was seemingly delighted with the conversation, though the goblin hadn't seemed to have noticed whether Sato could actually understand what he was saying.

Waiting for Gelon to be distracted with his drink, Mayes leaned over to Sato, bowing their head. “My Lord Sato. You know, as a local of Vishima myself, I’m fairly aware of the provinces of Lord Toju and Lord Michio, but I must admit, the mountains aren’t a place that I know about very much, and I would be very interested to hear about anything, any tales of your area that you’d be willing to share.”

Sato and Meiko both watched as they spoke, and then, Sato glanced to Meiko. It seemed as though Meiko was translating for him, and as Sato replied, Meiko nodded and turned back to Mayes with his uncomfortable stare. “What do you want to know?”

“Just… anything they’d be willing to share. I’m so used to the city myself, I imagine it must be quite difficult in the mountains. I know you do a lot of mining, but I’m really interested in… I like the tea from the island. There’s nothing quite like it in Erran, and I know that you produce a lot of tea in your area.”

Meiko turned, speaking to Sato. Sato spoke back, and Meiko gave a response. “Our tea is most wonderful, isn't it?”

“...Yes.”

“Nothing else quite like it. Perhaps we could offer some to the Erran council, as a trade back and forth.”

“I think that would be appreciated.”

“The region is incredibly beautiful. Perhaps you should visit sometime.”

“I’d like to. I’d like to go home at some point…” Mayes was trying very hard to make polite conversation for as long as the pair seemed to be willing, and not to appear put off by Meiko’s strange stare. After a while, Mayes noticed that Meiko wasn’t translating everything Mayes said, giving shorter translations to Sato. Additionally, he seemed to expand more on Sato’s shorter answers, bringing more to the conversation than Sato seemed to offer.

“You know… I heard from someone I used to know from the area, who said that there was some problem with bandits, or something? In the mountains?”

Meiko tilted their head. “Bandits?”

“Something to do with bandits, just… I know we don’t get a lot of that on the island, and- ”

“Not at all.”

Mayes nodded, backtracking as they took in Meiko’s reaction. “It struck me as odd, if someone is spreading those kinds of rumors about your province- ”

“Who is this friend?”

“Oh, what was his name…” Mayes looked away, tapping their fingers on the table as they stalled for time. “We only knew each other for a little while. Um… Daiski?”

“Do you know the surname?”

“Um, Yukimora?”

“Hm. Not familiar with it.”

Mayes shrugged, hoping the false name would placate him.

“Strange,” Meiko continued. “Very strange. As you know, we don’t have much crime in Vishima at all.”

“That’s why it struck me as odd.”

Meiko stared straight into Mayes. “There is no crime in Vishima. Very odd.”

“Very odd.”

Meiko turned and spoke to Sato. The name didn’t translate, and Mayes heard him pass on the fake name to the Lord. Sato’s expression didn’t change, but something similar to slight amusement passed through his eyes.

The food was delivered shortly, with a very rare and bloody piece of meat served alongside a few potatoes and carrots for Sato. Meiko was leaning over Sato heavily, like a dog pressing their nose up against a table. Sato raised a hand, and Meiko backed off slightly.

Icarus’s voice continued on. “So yeah, the last time we were there, we ended up fighting chimeras in the arena- ”

Michio had ordered quite a bit of food, fully engaged as he asked his questions, shoveling food in. “This sounds amazing!”

“Mayes took down a whole chimera by themself!”

Michio reciprocated with stories about the local wildlife in Vishima, describing how he and a group of farmhands had fought off different creatures in the fields.

Later on in the meal, Pandora turned to Toju. “My Lord, if I may be so bold as to ask, um, I noticed that Sato’s aide is holding a glaive, and your other two have weapons as well… are they ceremonial? Particularly the one he is always holding? Or is it a custom for Vishima?”

“It’s a ceremonial thing,” Toju replied. “Although, of course, our guards carry weaponry should anything happen to us…”

“Which we would hope that nothing would.”

“I would hope so,” Toju agreed. “I would hope so. But no, it’s a ceremonial thing for the Sato household. That their honor guard will always carry a weapon like this.”

“So is it an heirloom that is passed down? How old is it?”

Pandora didn’t know much about Vishima weaponry, but it did look like an antique. Toju replied that he wasn't sure, but he believed it was the same weapon, passed down through the honor guard over the generations.

In one of the rare moments when Michio was distracted, Pandora whispered over to Icarus, relaying the information. “It seems a bit excessive for him to have to carry it around, if he’s only got the one hand…”

Icarus raised his eyebrows, and gave a nod.

“I don’t want to come across as rude!” she whispered. “But like, do you not think?”

Icarus gave a small shrug. “I mean, it’s just kind of a show of power.”

“I guess…”

“I mean, Toju looks terrified of him, you know? So I guess it’s just kind of him keeping his little…  _ being in charge _ thing.”

“Because, the others have their weapons on their backs…”

“Stoically. I mean, he can put it down. I’ve seen him put it down, he didn’t have it in the bath.”

“Yeah, but only then. Can you imagine if he’d been in the bath with it?” she smiled slightly, the pair giggling to each other.

“Didn’t he have his gold hand under the water?” Icarus added. “It’ll rot!”

Pandora blinked. “It’s  _ gold.” _

Icarus looked a bit confused, and slightly embarrassed. “I don’t know!”

The pair turned back to their meals. Meiko was staring at them.

  
  


Dinner continued on as they made pleasantries. Toju asked Adamos to join him outside to smoke a pipe on the terrace area outside of the restaurant. He asked Arkud as well, but Arkud was dismissive. Michio was now in conversation with the goblin, genuinely seeming to be having a great time as they talked.

Toju and Adamos left the table. As they did, Pandora noticed Roys lean on his hand, looking over at her as his other hand tapped against the table.

Suddenly, she heard his voice in her head. Roys informed her that Adamos had told him he didn’t trust Toju. Roys was going to leave to follow the pair, and he asked her to follow after.

Pandora caught his eye, giving a slight nod. Roys casually excused himself from the table, declaring that he needed to use the restroom.

Pandora panicked a bit, following his excuse. “Um… I’m just going to use the restroom…”

“Yeah, okay,” Icarus grinned.

“I’ll be back.”

“Sure.”

“Bye Pandora,” Mayes nodded.

She got up, and as casually as she could, left. She felt incredibly uncasual as she did, but nobody seemed to mind her as she passed.

Reaching the corner where the corridor turned to the terrace, Roys appeared, grabbing her arm. “Adamos really doesn’t trust this guy. I don’t know why, but he wants me to hear whatever Toju is gonna say to him, and I just feel like the three of you should know as well.”

Pandora gave a nervous nod. “Thank you for bringing me into this, I guess. As much as I’m  _ freaking out _ right now…”

“Don’t freak out. You’ve got this.”

“Okay…”

“Be cool.”

Pandora pointed between his forehead and hers. “Cool trick, by the way.”

“Yeah,” he smiled.

He led her down to the windows that opened to the terrace, and they stood inside as they strained to listen. The conversation was quiet at first as the pair stuffed some leaves into pipes for an after dinner smoke. The conversation was a bit stilted as Adamos tried to ask Toju a few probing questions about the meeting tomorrow.

Turning to Adamos with a slightly cold look in his eye, Toju threatened the Councilor. He threatened to expose the fact that he knew Erran had been funding piracy in the Western Seas. “If the council doesn't agree to all the terms that we set out in tomorrow’s meeting, then we will make it public.”

Councilor Adamos said something in return, staring daggers at Toju, but he spoke so quietly Pandora couldn’t catch it. He seemed quite angry and threatening in return. Toju said something, then Adamos, but she couldn’t make out the words until Toju raised his voice. “I think that is  _ very _ inappropriate language for your guests, and you will be  _ very _ sorry.”

Adamos turned on his heel and stormed back inside, bursting through the doors. If he saw Pandora and Roys, he didn’t pay any mind to the pair as he headed back towards the dining room. Toju straightened himself, huffing on the balcony.

Roys stepped away, beckoning her. “Quickly, quickly, let’s…”

She darted over to him, and they both seemed to get to the doors before Toju turned back around.

  
  


Councilor Adamos stormed back into the dining room. “The meal is over. We’re going now.”

The air turned awkwardly quiet for a moment. Gelon looked up. “Are you sure? What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“It’s fine. I’m sure everything will be resolved at tomorrow’s meeting, but we are done for tonight.”

Arkud deflated at his seat, looking over to Sato and Michio. “My apologies.”

The councilors got up, taking their aides with them, and left. Roys shot Pandora a look as he went, and she heard his voice in her head once more.  _ “I don’t know what to do with this information, but we’ll find a chance to talk.” _

_ “I kind of wish you hadn't dragged me into this!” _ she replied.

There was a distant  _ “Sorry!” _ as he left, and the students were left with the Lords and their aides in the dining room.

Toju hadn’t returned yet, but Sato turned to Meiko, whispering something to him before Meiko nodded in agreement, and looked out the door.

Michio sucked in air through his teeth. “Right. Well. That was awkward…”

“There’s probably some sort of emergency going on back at the council,” Icarus offered.

“Probably.”

Pandora tried her best to casually re-enter the room.

“Pandora!” Michio greeted. “Our other dinner guests for tonight, they’ve had to leave.”

“Oh, that’s… that’s a shame!”

“It is…”

“We don’t have to call it a night early if you don’t want to, though,” Icarus encouraged.

“Well, we were gonna go to the Maw!” Michio remembered. “And Icarus has been telling me all about the Maw…”

“I’m sure he has,” Pandora smiled. “We can still go to the Maw, yes, we can still have some fun tonight.”

“We’ve got tickets,” Mayes nodded. “It’s gonna be fine.”

“It’s gonna be great,” Michio grinned. Toju returned to the room as Michio stood. “We’re going to the Coliseum!” he proclaimed. Michio was trying his best to smooth things over, though it was clear in his expression that he knew Toju had done something, and Michio was not happy about it.

Sato was just staring straight ahead, with only a slight tick in his eyebrow, and a clench in his jaw.

The nine remaining; the Lords, their aides, and the students, filed out of the restaurant. Michio gave an apology to the restaurant attendants, and they headed out into the streets of Erran.

“Lead the way!” Michio grinned. “To the Coliseum.”

Night had fallen, and the evening air was warm, with a gentle breeze blowing through the cobblestone streets as they made their way towards the Maw.

Pandora was still quite stressed.

As they walked, Mayes took a piece of scrap paper from their bag, scribbling  _ Talk Later? _ on the page. As Mayes walked by, they casually tucked it into Jiro’s pocket. Though he didn’t pull it out straightaway, Jiro gave Mayes the most relaxed look yet, his face settling on a small smile as Mayes went past.

Icarus was still regaling Michio with tales of the Maw, advertising the food there. “You’ve got to try a sloppy joe burger. I know it’s not up to your standard, but it’s part of the experience! And they make these big woven hands that you can put on your own hand and wave it- !”

They arrived at the Maw, and the group was shown through the VIP passages to their seats. This time, the show went smoothly. Damen wasn’t there yet, still at home recovering.

They were seated close to the Lords, though not with them directly. The Lords were up by the Imperata’s seat, where the trio had seen a few Councilors sit before. They had been seated to be seen by the crowd, and they were certainly attracting the attention of the people in attendance. Their aides sat along the row with the trio of students, and they watched another wonderful show at the coliseum.

They waved at the gladiators they knew, and a few waved back. Sho leaned on one hand, glancing over to Icarus. “Wow, you know everyone around here, huh?”

“Yeah, we’ve, we’ve… we’ve been p-pretty… busy…”

“We’ve been here a couple of times,” Pandora covered.

Sho nodded. “That’s very impressive.”

“We’re kind of friends with some of the gladiators,” Mayes explained.

“We saved one of their lives,” Icarus added.

“Do you have anything like this?” Pandora wondered. “Back in Vishima?”

“No, nothing like this,” she replied. “All fighting in Vishima is kept mostly to the guard, and the military.”

“We’re more… theatre people,” Mayes realized.

“Definitely more theatre people.”

“I suppose this is kind of a form of theatre,” Pandora mused. “In a sense.”

“Very particular kind of theatre,” Mayes chuckled.

Sho tilted her head. “And I hear we’re going to your very exciting and unique music hall tomorrow night, so…”

“Yes we are!” Pandora grinned. “We’ve been so excited about this, it’s been something I’ve wanted to see for as long as I can remember. It’s a really unique experience.”

“That’s exciting. I do like music…”

Icarus was still staring at her, a dazed smile on his face. “Mhm…”

  
  


The show passed, and it was quite late when they all caught a carriage back to the Villa. The Lords, in different states of tiredness and excitement, excused themselves to their rooms and retired for the night.

Michio had bought a wicker hand for himself and the others. He had been poking Toju with it the whole night, and as he left for his room, he gave a friendly point to Icarus. Michio was quite jolly, with a bit too much ouzo in him. “Uncle will see you tomorrow!”

“Night, Uncle!” Icarus laughed.

“Goodnight!”

As the Lords left, it grew close to midnight. The students were now off-duty for the night. As Pandora and Icarus returned to their room to get ready for bed, Mayes went to meet with Jiro in the main lobby of the Villa. Jiro was standing there quietly, watching out the back window into the gardens.

“Nice view,” Mayes began.

“It is. It’s nice.”

There was a bit of a pause before Jiro spoke again.

“Strange, seeing you.”

“You’re telling me. Really threw me for a loop this morning,” Mayes returned.

“Yeah, me too. When I found out we were coming here, I really didn’t think… I’d see you.”

“I mean, when the contract came up at the school it was sort of a…  _ guess I have to do this one.” _

“Huh. How have you been?”

“Good, good. The school is really great, and the two that were with me, they’re really good friends.”

“Yeah, seems like it.”

“It’s interesting, been travelling a lot more around the area. How have you been? When did you move?”

“Uh, well,” Jiro shrugged. “I was, um… I joined the guard in Tominada, I trained for a while, and then… on a visit to the city, I met Michio, and he offered me a job in his personal guard, so…”

“That impressive, huh?” Mayes grinned.

Jiro gave a small, dark laugh. “I don’t know whether it was impressive, or whether he just took pity on me.”

“...What do you mean?”

Jiro looked down. “Uh, well…”

“I know that things weren’t great, after… you kind of left me in the woods.”

“Yeah… You know, people didn’t stop talking about that.”

Mayes shrugged. “Not surprising, considering how easily spooked everyone gets.”

“Whatever happened to you, people started blaming me.”

“I don’t think it was your fault. It was just… I guess people tell us not to go for a reason.”

“Yeah, well… Maybe I shouldn’t have,” he swallowed, looking away again. “My dad went missing too.”

“Oh… I’m…” Mayes shook their head, filled with emotion. “...Can I hug you?”

“...Okay.”

Mayes wrapped him in a big hug. Jiro squeezed them back slightly, not entirely used to the feeling of an embrace.

“I’m sorry, Jiro.”

“It’s okay. You know, I was just so superstitious, and too bold, and I guess I pushed too far.”

“...Yeah. Hey, at least you have a job with the cool Lord now.”

Jiro chuckled. “Yeah. Yeah, he’s a good guy.”

“I can tell.”

“You know, I just wanted to… I don’t know, I wanted to find myself in a position where I could stop more people from going missing.”

Mayes took a bit of a strained pause. “Yeah, I’m sure you’re doing a great job with that.”

“Maybe. Well, needless to say, I stopped wandering into the woods, so.”

“Yeah, now you have more farmlands to protect, and whatnot.”

Jiro chuckled again. “And you’re safe out here, so, don’t need to worry about you wandering into the woods anymore.”

“There’s not really any woods around here to wander into.”

“No, I noticed that.”

“Just kind of… city.”

Jiro nodded. “I’m glad you’re doing well.”

“I’m glad you’re doing well.”

“I don’t know what I expected, if I saw you again, but… it’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too. So um… sorry if it’s not professional to ask, but obviously you were on a ship with all of them for however long… is… is there like, something between Toju and Sato? They just seem… uncomfortable with each other.”

Jiro looked around, but there didn’t seem to be anyone listening nearby. “If you ask me… Lord Toju is terrified of Sato. He’s kind of the shadow lord of Tominada, pulling strings from up in his mountain fortress.”

“Hm. That’s kind of… not great.”

“Well, you know Vishima.”

“Yeah. I do. Small island,” Mayes sighed. “Weird stuff going on sometimes, I guess.”

“Best not to ask.”

“...Sure.”

Jiro gestured down the hall. “I should see if Michio needs anything.”

“Yeah, sure.”

While Jiro’s expression was very guarded, it didn’t seem like he was withholding anything. Mayes wished him goodnight, and walked back to their room.

  
  


As they reached the door to their own room, pushing it open to enter, they heard raised voices from outside in the courtyard. As they entered, they caught Pandora and Icarus’s eyes, and gestured for them to be quiet as they listened.

“Let’s go find out,” Icarus mumbled.

The three of them peeked out the window in Pandora’s room as she surreptitiously pushed it open. As they listened, they were able to identify the voices as Michio and Toju.

“Threatening Adamos, that was a huge mistake,” Michio lectured. “And you’ll be hurting our allyship with Erran in the long run.”

Toju scoffed. “I’m… I’m just saying that neither you or them will like what’s gonna be unleashed if they delay or make things difficult.”

“What are you talking about? I’ve got no idea what you’re insinuating.”

Toju had sounded slightly angry at first, but now his tone was more insistent. “It will be… a bad time… what that sort of difficulty might…  _ unleash.” _

As they continued to discuss, Toju began to sound more scared than threatening.

Michio shook his head. “You’re sounding ridiculous. I mean, we’re not in Vishima. Your stories, they don’t fit here, okay? We’re in Erran, and we should accommodate to them…”

Michio continued on, not understanding whatever Toju was insinuating. As they listened, the three students heard movement from down the hall, and the sound of a door opening and closing just outside their rooms.

The trio quickly snuck over to the other side of their rooms to listen, pushing the door open again. They couldn’t see anything up and down the hallway, but then they heard something even more unsettling coming from the room with the trunk. Something beyond the door was squelching.

They moved closer, putting an ear to the door across the hall. Something large was moving around inside. They heard the scrape of luggage moving across the tiled floor followed by the sound of something wet, as if something was chewing, and tearing something off bone.

The set of double wooden doors stood in front of them. As Mayes reached forwards, Icarus stopped them. “We need our weapons.”

“...Do we?”

“Maybe! It sounds like something might be… animal, in there.”

“It’s just… let’s just be quiet about this first.”

“Okay…”

Mayes went to move the handle. It creaked slightly, but they were able to move it slowly enough that the sound wasn’t noticeable. Pushing the door, it was locked.

Mayes turned back to the others, suggesting they sneak around to the windows pointing in from the courtyard outside.

“We can just wait here and see if anyone comes out,” Icarus countered.

“...Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s hide further down the corridor, I don’t know…”

“Ugh, I don’t like this!” Pandora worried.

Mayes darted back to their room, grabbing their trap tools and kneeling down at the strange door. With a bit of fiddling, they felt it was quite a complicated lock, but as Icarus tapped them on the back to send a bit of assistive magic their way, Mayes managed to unlock it.

As the lock clicked, there was silence in the room.

Mayes pushed the door open. For just a moment, they saw a glimpse of a hulking, monstrous shape, right next to the huge trunk.

Then it was gone.

Looking further in, they saw the rest of the sprawling room, with stone columns all down it and beautiful murals over the walls. Various piles of luggage sat on the floor by a couple of open crates. The huge trunk was sitting right in the middle of it all, looking exactly as it did, but with the lid slightly askew - as if someone had been into it, or perhaps, something had gotten out.

  
  



	19. The Lords of Vishima: Part Two, Episode Nineteen

They stood outside of the room. Mayes could see through a crack in the door into the sprawling function room, decorated with beautiful columns and murals, and filled with luggage and the huge travelling chest carried into the villa by four men, the lid now slightly askew.

The humongous, humanoid figure, dark and hunched over, had vanished into thin air. Mayes went stiff as they put the pieces together in their mind, matching this shape to their foggy memories of the bonfire.

“What is it?” Pandora whispered.

“Um… Whatever it is, it just disappeared.”

“Huh?”

“Can we see?” Icarus asked.

“Yeah,” Mayes stood back. “Just be quiet.”

Icarus poked his head around, and saw nothing but an empty room. “Okay… We should at least take a look, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Because there might be something dangerous.”

“Be on guard.”

They tiptoed inside the room. The floor was tiled, and silent under their feet as they moved inside. The room was large and square, and mostly empty save for the travelling crates and chests pushed inside.

As they approached the largest box, they could see many intricate carvings and metal embellishments on the outside, making a decorative picture. Pushing the lid back slightly, it smelled funky inside, with traces of some viscous liquid along the bottom.

On the outside, the carvings depicted images of mountains, traditional Vishima houses, and a few monsters and ghosts. Throughout the images, there seemed to be one person repeated throughout most of the panels.

“One person,” Icarus pointed, “All the way through it. Is it like, a story about them?”

Mayes spent a while walking around the outside of the trunk. The repeated character seemed to be dressed in the clothing of an honor guard, with the same hakama style and painted face. The more they looked, the more disturbing the carvings became. Mayes picked out images of body parts and dismembered corpses hidden amongst the other designs, with a few spots in between panels laden with writing in a language Mayes couldn’t read.

“Um… This is kind of uncomfortable…”

“What is it?” Pandora asked.

“Come look closely…” Mayes brought the pair over, pointing out some of the more grotesque details.

“Ugh…”

“Why would…? Monsters I can kind of understand, there’s the whole thought process that if you make yourself look like a monster, you’ll scare the monsters away. But, why would you put in… gore?”

Pandora looked around the rest of the room. She was on edge to the point where she felt something might still be inside with them, but she shook off the feeling. Other than that, she did notice the faint smell of herbs in the air.

“...Does anyone else smell that?”

Icarus sniffed the air. “Maybe there was food?”

Mayes frowned. “Herbs…”

Catching each other’s eye, Icarus and Mayes stepped forward to push the lid off. As they looked down into the trunk, there was an immediate arcane flash of energy at the bottom. Pulling themselves back quickly, whatever the spell was, it didn’t seem to take.

“What is it?” Pandora worried.

“Spell?” Icarus guessed.

Mayes gave a nod. “Spell trap.”

Pandora peered carefully over the edge into the box. “It’s a protective, it’s got a warding glyph in there.”

“On the inside?” Icarus frowned.

“It’s spent itself.”

Mayes looked back inside. The walls of the box were lined with ruins which Pandora recognized as Abjuration magic. Though she didn’t know the exact spell, she knew they were drawn with the intent to contain something, and negate the harmful effect of whatever had been inside. But the trunk was now empty.

“It was laced with protection magic,” she explained. “Abjuration symbols, to protect what was in there. It negates harmful effects… so maybe there was something else in there, that was exuding a negative energy of some sort?”

“And now something might be loose,” Icarus realized.

Mayes looked around the room. “Something’s definitely out.”

“You said whatever you saw disappeared?” Pandora prompted.

“Yeah, but, it… reminded me of what I can remember of the bonfire.”

“Okay,” Icarus nodded.

“And from what Daichi said before, it seems like one of the Lords… probably Sato… has some sort of creature.”

“Are you feeling anything from Daichi right now?” Pandora wondered.

As she spoke, she watched Mayes’ eyes glaze over.

“Mayes?”

She watched Mayes move, almost puppetlike, reaching out to stroke their hand along the outside of the trunk and following the designs. Mayes was still conscious inside, watching as Daichi controlled their hand, bringing it around to the start of the story on the trunk. They were looking down at the image of a mask.

“...Mayes?”

Suddenly, Daichi released them.

“You good?” Icarus worried.

“You went somewhere,” Pandora warned.

Mayes looked back to the box. “I think Daichi’s trying to tell me something.”

“Okay…”

“Wait,” Icarus blinked. “Did Daichi just… take over?”

Mayes gave a slow nod. “Yeah… Um, yeah.”

Icarus’s eyebrows shot up, and he turned to give Pandora a concerned look.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mayes assured them. “It’s okay.”

“Sure!” Icarus gulped. “Okay!”

“That's totally normal,” Pandora agreed, giving a bit of an exaggerated nod. “That’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that at all.”

“He’s cool,” Mayes insisted.

“Mhm…”

“We talked. It’s fine.”

“Uh huh… Well, what did he have to say?”

Mayes pointed. “It’s a mask.”

“Yeah… So what, is that the most important symbol on there, or…?”

“Those… This might be a stretch, but those kelpies that we fought? They could make themselves look like people.”

“Yeah… This might also be a stretch, but, when the aides arrived with the Lords, they had their faces all painted… is it just me, or… that Meiko guy is really creepy!”

“Meiko is really creepy,” Mayes cringed. “He spent the whole, well… When Sato’s food came to him, he just kind of lurched forward for it. There was this overwhelming feeling that that guy is  _ really _ hungry. Well, those people were… eaten.”

Pandora shivered. With Daichi’s help, they were able to follow the story from the beginning, moving around the box despite not being able to read the words. Perhaps the mask was a metaphor, but there seemed to be something that granted power to whoever it came in contact with. The mask was found by an armoured soldier in a mountain cave hundreds of years ago, and was used to protect his master. Following the story around, the mask was passed from guardian to guardian. The catch was, the mask had some gruesome and unstoppable power. The person wearing it in the images grew sharp teeth, and seemed to devour the flesh of other people, with depictions of body parts strewn about the wearer’s feet.

“Okay,” Mayes gulped. “Think of it like this… if Sato’s line has always been his family… maybe it’s because they’ve got this powerful being protecting them.”

“Maybe,” Icarus shuddered. “But can we potentially move out of here and at least sweep the area? I don’t feel comfortable just letting something wander around while we chat, you know?”

“Yeah. We should probably go chat in private as well.”

Before they left, they checked over the other crates scattered about. Most of them were sealed shut, but they found one open. Investigating a bit closer, they found blood at the bottom of it, and a chunk of something fleshy, like a trim of fat from a piece of meat. It seemed to be decomposing a bit, but there were more pouches of herbs inside that seemed to keep the worst of the smell away. The pouches were exactly similar to what Meiko had been wearing.

“There’s flesh in here,” Pandora cringed. “Oh, that’s so gross…”

Icarus replaced the lid. “Okay… Let’s sweep the area. We’ve got to make sure that this thing isn’t doing anything. Make sure everyone here is safe.”

They headed back out into the hallway, and overheard voices down by the corridor near the main part of the building. They recognized Meiko’s voice speaking with Sho. Silently sneaking closer, and very carefully padding down the hall, they stopped to eavesdrop.

“Listen here, Sho,” Meiko growled, “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I don’t want you getting  _ any _ closer to my Master, and I don’t think you’re gonna like what happens if you try. Just you wait. I’ll make you regret looking at him twice.”

“You think I’m scared of you, creep?” Sho returned. “I know your secret, so whatever you think you’re threatening me with, think again. You’re getting sloppy.”

From where they were hiding, the trio saw her wipe something gross from Meiko’s collar, shaking it off her hand with distaste. She suddenly looked around in the trio’s direction- not at them, but past them- seemingly anxious. Stroking her shoulder, she turned back to him. “We need somewhere more private to talk.”

She beckoned him in quite an authoritative manner. Sho didn’t seem scared of him at all. Meiko looked like he wasn’t going to go at first, but then bristled and followed her. They headed back further into the villa, towards the Lord’s rooms.

“Should we follow them?” Icarus whispered.

“Maybe we should just talk to Sho later,” Mayes replied.

“Maybe. Ask Jiro again?”

“Both of them.”

“Yeah…”

“They’ve spent ages on that boat together.”

“I’ve got something to tell you guys anyway,” Pandora urged.

“So we should talk.”

They headed back to their rooms. Mayes used their trap tools to lock the door to the room with the luggage, and though the arcane part of the lock didn’t reactivate, the door looked slightly less suspicious now.

As they stepped back into Icarus’s room, they all took a deep breath, feeling safe for the moment.

“Some weird stuff going on here,” Pandora mumbled.

“Yeah,” Mayes sighed. “What did you want to talk to us about?”

“Okay… at dinner, you know how I left to go to the restroom? …I didn’t go to the restroom.”

Mayes grinned. “Pandora Di Rossi… You coming for my position?”

“I’ll never be able to get anywhere your position, Mayes,” she chuckled. “I can’t  _ see _ your position half the time.”

Mayes laughed, and Pandora smiled.

“So,” she continued, “Roys messaged me, and asked me to follow him, because… you know when Toju and Adamos went to smoke? He followed Adamos, because Adamos doesn’t trust Toju. And I guess with good reason, because when I followed him and listened in, Toju was threatening Adamos.”

Icarus blinked. “Wait, what?”

“Why?” Mayes pressed.

“He said… he implied that the Erran Council is funding piracy. And that he would spill the secret to everyone if the Council made any more delays on the trade talks.”

Icarus’s eyes went wide as he listened.

“...Huh,” Mayes considered.

“Adamos was not impressed,” Pandora finished.

“What… What kind of threat was he making?”

“Just to spill the information, I suppose.”

“Hm. And then, obviously we just heard Michio and Toju arguing about… that?”

“That must have been about… what that was.”

“He did like to say  _ unleash,” _ Mayes recalled. “And now we’ve got a protective box that’s open.”

“Yeah,  _ unleash _ was a very specific word.”

Mayes held their head in their hands, looking to the ground. “I hate this.”

“So, maybe Toju thinks that if the trade talks go on too long, maybe something will be unleashed? Either on the Council, or on Erran as a whole? I don’t know…”

“Well, if…”

“This just got a whole lot more complicated than we thought.”

“If Sato has the resource of a man that can turn into a people-eating creature, then…”

“But like, why would they set it loose on Councilors? That’s not going to help their trade efforts!”

“They wouldn’t,” Icarus realized. “They’d set it loose on people. Because they want to threaten the Councilors.”

Mayes turned away for a moment, composing themselves. “Politics can be so bloody…”

“It’s so complicated,” Pandora sighed. “But… it seems to be true, if Adamos reacted the way he did. And I mean, you guys saw how quickly he closed the dinner and told everyone to leave…”

“Yeah,” Icarus frowned. “I think tomorrow, we should do some more snooping when the meeting is going on.”

“Well from what the itinerary says, it’s gonna go on for a while.”

“Yeah, we’ve got time.”

“We can get at those vents,” Mayes agreed.

“I don’t know if we can get Roys to help us,” Pandora worried. “He might be tied up tomorrow.”

“I think… if there's time tomorrow, we should definitely talk to Jiro and Sho, and maybe see if they can… distract Meiko for a bit, so we can go look in his room and see if he’s… got anything incriminating? I don’t know…”

“See what we can put on Meiko. Because he’s creepy, but that’s not anything, like…”

“It’s subjective,” Icarus agreed.

“It’s just a weird link of who he is, and…” Mayes shook their head. “For one box. And it’s not anything concrete, it’s just… a creepy coincidence.”

The trio sat in silence for a moment until Pandora spoke up again. “This is a lot, right?”

“This is a lot.”

“I just wanted to do my final exams in peace.”

The others gave a small chuckle.

“Not allowed any of that, I guess,” Icarus shrugged.

“No. It’s never a dull moment with you two,” she smiled.

Just as the mood was about to settle, they heard a noise coming from Mayes’ room.

Mayes quickly snuck up to the door that connected Icarus’s room to theirs, silently lifting the latch. Pulling it open slightly, they looked inside. The first thing they noticed was that their window was open. Looking further, some of their possessions had been visibly rifled through. Mayes looked the other way, and saw the door to their bedroom was also open.

“What is it?” Pandora whispered.

Mayes swung open the door. “We’ve had a double breach.”

Pandora hurried to Icarus’s door, looking out and into the hallway. “Someone! Follow me!”

Icarus followed.

She couldn’t see anyone, but she did find a few wet footprints coming from Mayes’ room and up the hall. At the same time, Mayes peered out the window. They could see a path in the plants where something had moved through to the window from the reflecting pool. A damp path led across their bed and onto the floor, walking around the room before leading to the door. The footprints were definitely larger than a typical human.

Pandora stepped out of the room to follow the prints. Though it was dark outside, they were fairly easy to follow with her dark vision. She followed them down the hallway. The tracks passed the room with the trunk in it, and then stopped dead, with not a single further footprint.

She stared down at the prints. “...What?”

Icarus, following close behind, looked down. It was as if someone had been walking, and suddenly ceased to exist. “…What?”

Pandora looked around, but found no trace of anything moving up the walls or ceiling.

Inside their room, Mayes shut and locked their window before peeking their head out into the corridor.

“Whoever it is is gone,” Pandora reported.

“Like,  _ gone,” _ Icarus repeated. “Like, they were here, and now they’re not. Gone.”

Mayes glanced back into their room. “They came from, like, the pond.”

“That’s why they’re wet.”

“Yeah. And big.”

Icarus wandered up the hallway, but he didn’t see anyone around. Pandora checked around for anything arcane nearby to explain the disappearing footprints, but came up empty.

Mayes returned to their room, checking over their things. They rooted through for a while, looking to see if anything had been stolen. Their bag seemed untouched, though they did rediscover the symbol of Pelor they had received in Ithia tucked into one of the back pockets, a token they had almost forgotten about.

It took a while to think to check their other equipment, but when they did, they found that their katana was gone. “Son of a- !”

Outside, Pandora jumped. “You good?”

“No!”

Pandora hurried in, followed by Icarus. “What happened?”

Mayes was glaring suspiciously around the room. “My grandpa’s sword is gone.”

“What?”

Despite their rising anger, Mayes managed to keep their voice steady. “My grandfather’s sword is gone.”

“...That’s incredibly specific. And, your other sword is still there?”

“Yup.”

Pandora gulped. “…Someone is targeting you.”

“Which Lord knew your granddad?” Icarus asked.

“Toju,” Mayes answered. “Used to work for him.”

“He did say he was really offensive, the last time he saw him,” Pandora recalled. “No offense… Like, that’s no reason to come in and steal your sword, but…”

“I know, I know,” Mayes sighed. “He didn’t leave on the best of terms, but… he’s a really nice man.”

“No no no, I don’t doubt that! It’s just… very weird.”

As they sat, Mayes felt Daichi getting very antsy. Suddenly, they heard his voice in their head.  _ “Something’s happening.” _

Mayes snapped to attention. “Right now?”

“What?” the other two chorused.

Mayes held up a hand to hush them, but Daichi had gone quiet.

“I think that we should go and at least talk to Jiro,” Icarus decided “And say something’s been taken from your room.”

“Yes,” Mayes agreed. “That should definitely be made a point of. Because, maybe they’ll steal from someone else’s room. And to steal the weapon of someone who is escorting important political figures… anyone could be next.”

“I mean, just the fact that we’ve had a break in,” Pandora agreed.

“Exactly.”

“It’s enough of a concern.”

“And it would be right for them to know. Let’s go and find them.”

“Okay.”

It was nearly one o’clock in the morning by now. They wandered through the open areas of the villa, but all of the bedroom doors were shut, with nothing but the sound of gentle snoring coming from what must have been Michio’s room.

“Mayes,” Pandora whispered, “I’m going to put an alarm around your room, just in case.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you want to sleep in my room tonight?” Icarus offered. “And I’ll sleep in yours?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“If someone tries to come for me while I’m sleeping,” Mayes declared, “That’s  _ their _ problem.”

“I feel sorry for anyone who tries to come for you while you’re sleeping,” Pandora replied.

“Thank you. That’s a nice compliment.”

“Maybe we should have our weapons close tonight.”

“Yeah. And… I’ll have to find some sort of replacement, in the meantime.”

“Do you want to use my seablade?”

“No, I’ll just see if there’s… something knocking around.”

“See if you can borrow the glaive from Meiko,” Pandora teased.

“Ha, ha,” Mayes shook their head, grinning.

“I’m sure he’ll let you touch it. Use it, hold it, carry it.”

“Yes, I can definitely hold that one-handed.”

They headed back. Pandora put an alarm around Mayes’ room, and they went to bed. Settling down in their respective rooms, feeling a little uneasy, they slept through the night. Mayes kept their other sword under their pillow.

  
  


Morning came with a knock on the door, and a villa attendant explaining that breakfast would be served in the main lounge. They were invited to eat at their leisure, but the Lords would need to attend their meeting with the Council in an hour and a half.

As they readied themselves to head to the dining room, Pandora stopped the others. “Should we mention that something was stolen last night? Just to see if maybe any of the others experienced something similar?”

“Well we need to tell them anyway, like we were going to,” Mayes shrugged. “So…”

“We might as well,” Icarus agreed.

“Might as well. Like we said last night, it’s important that they’re aware that there’s a threat.”

The Lords and the others had gathered in the lounge area for a spread of breakfast laid out by the staff. Fresh fruit, grapes, apples, figs, watermelon, artisan breads, cold meats, eggs, and fresh juice were all laid out beautifully on a huge table.

Michio saw the three of them and came over, bowing his head. “Good morning!”

“Good morning, Uncle,” Icarus smiled.

Michio stood a bit straighter. The title seemed to make him very happy.

“Did you sleep well?” Pandora asked.

“I did, how about you three?”

“We had a little bit of a problem last night,” Icarus began. “Mayes had someone break into their room.”

Michio looked taken aback, genuinely shocked. “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry to hear that, what happened?”

“Someone stole my family’s katana,” Mayes explained with a tight smile.

“...That… seems a little strange.”

“Yes.”

“Did you see them?”

“No.”

“We were wondering whether any of you had anything missing this morning,” Pandora continued.

“Or heard something strange in the night?” Mayes probed.

“If we have, I haven’t heard from the others,” Michio frowned. “I certainly haven’t.”

Turning around, Michio suddenly announced the news to the entire room. Icarus and Pandora tried to look around at the crowd’s reaction, but they were immediately distracted by Meiko, staring right at them with the same wide eyes. He didn’t seem to be eating breakfast.

Mayes glanced over towards Sho, who pulled a face that seemed very unimpressed upon hearing the news, but the other Lords seemed to sniff in dismissal. Nobody claimed to have heard or seen anything, and nothing else had been taken.

“We’ll do our best to stay on guard tonight as well,” Icarus offered. “Keep you safe.”

“I’m sure you will,” Michio nodded.

“We just wanted to make sure that everything was out in the open.”

“Of course,” Mayes followed. “And if there’s any chance that… I don’t want to be presumptuous, but if there was anything in the luggage that I might be able to use as a replacement weapon? Just to make sure I’m on guard?”

“Absolutely,” Michio grinned.

“Thank you.”

“Couldn’t have any of the three of you without your weapons, you are protecting us after all. I will see to it myself.”

“Thank you, Uncle.”

Michio beamed again, and went straight off back towards his room.

The students indulged themselves in the breakfast spread. While Sho and Jiro were sitting down to eat, Meiko hadn’t touched the food. Icarus served himself, casually eating pieces of the cold meats to tease the aide. He grinned over to Meiko as he ate, giving him a friendly wave. Meiko stared back, looking ravenous before the aide managed to tear his gaze away.

Jiro looked well rested, and a bit lighter than the day before, not completely ignoring eye contact with Mayes anymore. Mayes sat near him to eat, and Jiro offered subtle conversation, offering his apologies over the katana. In reply, Mayes asked to discuss a favor with him later, and Jiro had agreed. “Yeah, sure. Anything you need.”

“Thanks.”

Before long, Lord Michio returned with his own personal katana, presenting it to Mayes. “I know it’s not quite a family heirloom, but…”

Michio passed it over. The blade had jade rabbits embedded down the outside of the sword. It was absolutely magnificent.

Mayes held it for a moment, looking it over with a gasp. “This is beautiful. Thank you, I’ll make sure not to damage it or anything.”

“I doubt there will be any reason for you to use it, but you should always be armed.”

“Precisely.”

Mayes attached the sword to their belt.

Michio clapped his hands together. “Right, I suppose we should be in a bit of a hurry, we have a very important meeting…”

“Yes, we have to get to the Council building,” Pandora agreed. “When you’re ready to go?”

Michio turned back to the rest of the group with a grin. “Are we ready? I think we should be ready by now…”

He hurried Toju along, who ate a bit faster before handing his plate back to an attendant, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with a napkin.

The group hopped back into the carriage, heading back towards the Council building.

  
  


About forty-five minutes into the hour long journey, the carriage was suddenly stopped by a roadblock. They were on one of the main roads through Erran, and Toju immediately leaned out the carriage window with a sneer. “Honestly, I think the road should have been cleared for us. Considering who we are. You three,” he gestured impatiently to the students, looking particularly grouchy this morning. “Go and see what’s going on.”

Mayes bowed their head. “Anything.”

“Of course,” Icarus smiled. “Accidents happen, but we’ll make sure we do what we can.”

They stepped out of the carriage. As they headed down, they realized it was a full blockade. Nobody was allowed to pass, and a slight crowd was forming, with a number of city guards standing at the blockade.

The students did their best to push through, making their way to a hobgoblin city guard.

“Hey, what’s all this?” Icarus asked. “This was open yesterday.”

The guard cleared their throat, looking around uncomfortably. “Unfortunately… a body has been found.”

Pandora’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“Yes, so we have to deal with that. The road will be open as quickly as we can.”

“Of course,” Icarus replied.

“Is there any sign of what happened?” Pandora asked.

“I’m afraid we can’t talk about it,” the guard apologized.

“We’re here on official business with some Lords of Vishima, and, we need to be somewhere as quickly as possible, so… if it’s possible to go this way, that would be much appreciated, or if we could have some information?”

The guard didn’t look like they believed her.

“Listen, we’re from Delphos,” Icarus tried. “And we’re escorting the Lords of Vishima to a meeting with the Councilors today. It’s a very important meeting, and if they miss it, it could potentially…” Icarus leaned forwards, lowering his voice. “You know how the High Council can be, right? Yeah?”

The guard nodded, looking a bit more persuaded. “Okay, look. We still need some time to get the body moved…” he gestured past him, and they could see a sheet over something further down the road. “Once that’s happened, you will be top priority to get through.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Is there any chance…” Mayes looked back over to the body. “This might be a bit of a weird, particular question, but… was the body slashed with any claws at all?”

The guard looked momentarily concerned, leaning in. “Why do you ask?”

“We… might have had some experience with an attack like this.”

“On the Armiger,” Icarus explained.

“We might have been witnesses to that.”

“Oh,” the guard blinked. “Well… come aside, come aside.”

He pulled them aside from the crowded citizens at the blockade. He informed the trio that there were claw marks on the body, but from what he had heard about the Armiger, they didn’t seem to be the same attack. This new body appeared to have been mostly eaten.

The guard, looking slightly sick at what he was saying, explained that the body wasn’t entirely recognizable in its current state. Flesh was torn from the bone, with organs partly chewed.

“What kind of time did this happen?” Icarus asked.

“It was found at dawn,” the guard explained. “So, we expect, in the night. Unfortunately, the body is wearing rather official clothing…”

Pandora tensed. “Official in the sense of what? A Councilor?”

“Not a Councilor, but perhaps someone who worked there.”

“Is… is there anything else recognizable?”

“Definitely elven.”

All the color from Pandora’s face drained away.

“Male or female?” Mayes asked.

“Uh, male.”

Pandora sat down.

Icarus crouched near her. “Hey, hey, we don’t know…”

Pandora looked back up at the guard. “This may be a bit of a weird request… is there a chance we could see the body?”

“I don’t think I should probably let you do that,” the guard apologized. “Unless you think you could identify them?”

Pandora gulped. “Maybe.”

“We’ve been in and out of the Council quite a few times,” Icarus explained.

The guard nodded. “Let me speak to my supervisor.”

The guard disappeared around a city patrol carriage as Mayes headed back to inform the Lords of the situation. The hobgoblin soon came back, and asked the trio to come past the blockade to take a look at the body.

Pandora swallowed, standing slowly back up. Icarus held her hand.

The red of the hobgoblin guard’s face went a bit paler as he lifted the sheet.

Pandora was immediately relieved to see blonde hair. The corpse had definitely been eaten, looking similar to Daichi. Although they couldn’t make out the face clearly, from the color of the skin and hair, she was pretty sure it was the aide of Councilor Gelon, who was present at the dinner last night.

“Oh,” Pandora sighed. “Oh, I think I know who that is.”

“Yeah, he was at the meal last night,” Icarus recalled.

“He’s the aide to Councilor Gelon.”

The guard blinked in surprise. “Oh! Thank you.” He quickly covered the body with the sheet again. “That helps us a lot, thank you.”

They were ushered back behind the blockade, and within the next ten minutes, the guard had moved the body and opened half of the road.

“Sorry for the holdup,” Icarus offered, stepping back into the carriage.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Michio assured them.

“We were top priority, as Mayes told you.”

“We should still be there in time,” Pandora informed them.

“Good, good,” he nodded.

The carriage rolled past. As they glanced out the window, there were more city guards gathering to discuss. After they rolled through, the blockade was put back behind them.

They made the rest of the journey to the Council building. Sato was stoic as ever, though Michio looked a little sad. Toju was significantly more stressed than he was earlier, glancing back to the body with a nervous expression.

Mayes turned to Icarus, trying to appear as though they were whispering privately, but measuring their volume just loud enough for the Lords to overhear. “We should probably inform the Councilor about what happened to his aide.”

Whispering that, Mayes flicked their eyes to Toju, searching for a reaction. Toju gulped, looking away as he tapped a hand against his knee nervously.

They arrived at the Councilor's building, leading the Lords into the cool rectangular space. The meeting was just about to start, and the students were told to wait on the benches as the Lords hurried inside. As they did, Michio warned them that the meeting could take several hours.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it Uncle,” Icarus smiled. “We’ll be here.”

“Good luck with your meeting,” Pandora offered.

“Thank you,” Michio grinned. “See you on the other side.”

In he went, and the doors were shut behind. The students were left in the lobby.

Mayes could feel Daichi irritable inside their body.

Icarus’s expression turned immediately serious. “Okay, so we need to find a way to snoop in there.”

They were in a long, rectangular building. The lobby was a rectangle itself with an open ceiling, a water feature in the middle, and a few plants scattered about. There were two doors on either side of the long ends of the rectangle, three of which were offices of High Councilors, and one of which Adamos was using while he was involved with the Lords. Down at the end was the large auditorium room where the meeting was happening. On either side of the auditorium door, there were vents into the arcane ducts that Roys had told them about the day before.

They were totally alone.

“I don’t know if it’s worth…” Mayes hesitated, glancing around. “You want to check out some of the offices, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Icarus admitted.

“I was gonna say, I don’t know if it’s worth trying to listen to them straight away. Because they’re going to need some time to… warm up, I guess.”

“Yeah, true. True…”

“Guess we should probably have a plan of attack before doing anything…” Mayes rubbed their eyes. “Gods, I hope Citra doesn’t find out about this.”

High Councilor Leonida, High Councilor Hammon, and High Councilor Arkud all had offices here. Arkud was currently in the meeting, but they weren’t sure where the others were. The fourth office, where Adamos was currently staying, was open to any regular level Councilor who needed it.

“Do we want to just go into Arkud’s office?” Icarus suggested.

“Or is there a way to get there by the vents?” Mayes countered.

“Yeah, I mean, we’d be able to at least look in and see first.”

“We’re going to have to go in the vents anyway.”

They headed to the one on the right hand side by Arkud’s office. The vent grate seemed like it could be pried off or unscrewed. Pandora kept an eye out while Mayes easily removed the grate with their trap tools.

“Good job,” Icarus grinned.

“Thanks.”

As soon as it was removed, the trio heard the sound of rushing water. A constant stream of water was moving past in one direction to trace around the outside of the main auditorium hall.

Icarus looked inside. The grate was on the floor, and one of them would have to kneel to enter. It wasn’t impossibly small, built intentionally large enough for maintenance, but it wouldn’t be very roomy. There was only about a four inch space above the water for breath.

“One of us is going to look suspiciously wet,” Mayes realized.

“I mean…” Icarus shrugged, “I kind of look wet most of the time.”

“Yeah… but your clothes.”

“I’m in a vent! No one is gonna know.”

“I mean when you come out of the vent afterwards.”

“Yeah,” Icarus shrugged, nodding. “Hold my clothes.”

Mayes blinked. “Oh…  _ Oh. _ Okay…”

“Sure, I guess,” Pandora sighed.

Icarus gave another shrug. “It’s worth a shot, right?”

Mayes wasn’t entirely convinced yet. “....Yeah? How are you gonna… I mean, surely there’s a vent on the other side… are you just gonna peek in?”

“Yeah, I’m not gonna go in, I’ll just peek. And then if there’s no one in there, I can come back and be like,  _ there’s no one in there, let’s go…” _

“And then we just break in the front?”

“Yeah!”

“This is a lot,” Mayes sighed, taking one last look around before they approved the plan. “Go on.”

“Okay!”

Icarus stripped off in the lobby, handing Mayes their clothes. Mayes rubbed their forehead as they took the clothes, but nobody was around, save for a bird looking curiously down at the naked triton. He got down, lining himself up. “I can do this…”

He slipped in, preparing himself to swim towards the office, only to be immediately taken by the powerful current in the opposite direction.

“Icarus!” Pandora called. She reached out, but he was already gone.

It wasn’t as fast as it had looked, but the current was too strong for him to swim against. It carried him around the corner, and another. A vent passed by, offering a view straight into the auditorium before he was swept further down the vent. He passed by another vent on the other side of the lobby, catching sight of Pandora and Mayes looking anxiously down the first vent.

He was carried around yet another corner, passing Councilor Adamos’s temporary office, where Roys was working inside. The vent brought him all the way down to the bottom of the building, sweeping him by Leonida’s office. It was empty.

Suddenly, the vent went straight down, dipping him under the road and up again on the other side. Icarus passed Hamond’s office, also empty, before he was finally brought to Arkud’s vent. He just managed to put his fingers into the vent, kicking in rhythm to fight the current. He paused, looked inside, and found it empty.

“I don’t know what I expected,” Icarus muttered to himself.

Pandora’s voice suddenly spoke in his mind. “ _ Are you there yet?” _

_ “Yeah.” _

_ “Are you there?” _

_ “Yeah.” _

_ “Is it empty?” _

_ “Yeah.” _

_ “Okay.” _ She turned back to Mayes. “He says it’s empty.”

“Does he want to make his way back?”

Pandora nodded, passing the message to Icarus.  _ “Do you want us to come to you? Or do you want to… just let go and come through the open grate?” _

_ “I’ll wait and… No, I’ll come to you. Catch me!” _

Icarus let go, and he shot around another corner before Pandora and Mayes reached out to grab him, hauling him out like a wet baby. Though his hair was sodden, the water slid easily off his skin. It was hot enough in the building that he could easily bask in a stretch of sunlight to dry off.

Icarus headed over to the water feature, squeezing out his hair a bit and getting dressed while Mayes put the grate back on. Everything looked almost normal, except for a small puddle of water by the side of the grate.

They headed to Arkud’s office, and Mayes picked the lock. It was a bright, airy office space, with a shuttered window out to the street above the vent inside. There were various plants in the office, with a trunk in one corner, and a large desk in the center with nice chairs on either side. The room had beautiful murals of Erran on the wall, and to one side of the desk was a portrait of Councilor Arkud and his wife.

“So, what exactly are we looking for?” Mayes whispered.

“Anything that ties him in with what’s been going on, right?” Icarus shrugged.

“Okay. So I guess… documents? If anything?”

“Documents, letters… Let’s just search his desk, see what he’s got in this trunk…”

The trio searched around for ten minutes, but they didn’t turn up anything unsavoury. They found mostly boring political files, with nothing to suggest any ties to piracy or Kondou. Inside the trunk were a few changes of clothing for special events. On the desk, they found a decanter of endless water in a nice glass.

“Well,” Pandora recalled, “Toju did ask Arkud to go out and smoke as well, but he said no. So I don’t know if he was targeting Arkud  _ and _ Adamos? Or whether he knew that Arkud wouldn’t go and smoke? I don’t know…”

“So potentially,” Mayes strategized, “You could distract Roys, and we could have a look in his temporary office.”

Pandora cringed. “I don’t know, I feel really weird about this.”

“But, I mean, it’s perhaps… Roys asked you to snoop last night, I’m sure he has an opinion on what he overheard.”

“Yeah…”

“Maybe you just want to… discuss that.”

“And if you want to do that, we can check out Leonida’s office,” Icarus suggested.

“You can just sort of… you know, go and talk to him, and maybe surreptitiously… have a look.”

“Yeah,” Pandora considered, “I mean, I didn’t get a chance to talk to him about it last night…”

“Exactly.”

“I’m sure he feels even weirder about all this, so…”

“Yeah, let’s do that,” Icarus approved.

“Be careful?”

“You too.”

Mayes locked Arkud’s office behind them, and they stepped back into the main hall. As Pandora went to speak with Roys, Mayes picked the lock to Leonida’s office.

Once again, Mayes and Icarus found themselves in another bright and airy office, exactly the same shape and size as Arkud’s. There was a large trunk in the corner, with a desk in the center, and a portrait of Leonida and his family on the wall. Icarus recognized Ivan and a younger Alexis, accompanied by a pretty but harsh featured hobgoblin woman who was likely Leonida’s wife, and an older hobgoblin boy with long hair and green eyes. There were various bookshelves as well, all filled with different books.

On the bookshelves, Mayes found a number of history texts on the War of the Three Crowns and the Errani Legions. There was a plaque in a corner celebrating Leonida’s graduation from Delphos Academy, and a medal awarded to him by the city for his work, dated over twenty years ago.

On the desk, Icarus found a small gilded lockbox with a gold decorated exterior, and an ashtray with the burned remains of paper inside, a few words still visible. Icarus picked out the legible pieces, piecing them together and reading through the missing words.

_ sending your _____ after me is not going to restore _______ the assembly _

“There’s not much on the shelves here,” Mayes reported.

“There’s a letter that was burned here,” Icarus replied. “And a lockbox. I’m not sure if you can get it open.” He pointed to the scraps of paper. “Sending your  _ blank _ after me is not gonna restore… missing letters again…  _ The Assembly.” _

“...Huh,” Mayes frowned. “That sounds… different.”

“Yeah.”

Mayes examined the lockbox. It didn’t seem to be magical, but they weren’t sure if it was trapped. They picked the lock, and it sprung open, but a needle jabbed three inches out of it and into Mayes’ hand, stabbing them.

Mayes recoiled, shaking their hand in pain.

“Are you okay?” Icarus worried.

“Son of a bitch. Of course that’s trapped…” Mayes felt a bit weak, but they were still on their feet. The needle had retracted, but there was a colored residue left on their hand. “There’s some kind of toxin in that.”

“Let me have a look.”

Icarus took Mayes’ hand, sending out a small spell to negate the effects of the poison. “How’s that feel?”

“Yeah that’s better. It just… really hurt.”

The lockbox was open. Inside were a number of hand delivered letters with open envelopes, all addressed to  _ “Dad.” _

It didn’t seem like Alexis’s handwriting.

Icarus leafed through them. A few had an address written neatly out for Leonida to respond. The letters came from the Desmitarion, literally translated to  _ place of chains, _ the Erran prison outside of the city walls. The older Leonida boy was named Visilious. Over the course of the letters, he pleaded with his father to help him. He claimed that he would soon be moved from the Desmitarion to work on a galley at sea, and he did not want to go. Over several letters, he asked his father to change his sentence, pleading for exile instead.

As Icarus flicked through to the last letter, Visilious’s words grew angry. He claimed it was Kondou’s fault, and Ivan was a bad father. The final correspondence was dated a month ago.

Icarus took the letter.

“Icarus,” Mayes warned.

“What?”

“You know what it says, you don’t need to- ”

“Yup.”

“...Okay.”

Mayes pushed shut the box, and it clicked shut.

“Okay, let’s go head out,” Icarus decided. “See if I can get my hair dry.”

“Yeah.”

  
  


Pandora knocked on Roys’s door.

“Just a moment!” he called.

She heard him get up from the desk and come to the door.

Seeing her, he grinned. “Pandora!”

Unable to help herself, Pandora threw her arms around his shoulders. “I’m really glad to see you.”

He hugged her back, but he could tell that something was wrong. “Are you okay?”

“Um… I was really worried that something had happened to you this morning. Can I talk to you? Have you got a sec?”

“Yeah, sure, come on in.”

Roys invited her inside, and closed the door.

“Um, I don’t know if you’ve heard about Gelon’s aide?”

Roys shook his head. “No.”

“When we were on our way here this morning, there was a blockade in the road, and, um… the guard had shut the road off because they had found a body. Um, we went to speak to them to see what was going on, and… we were able to identify it, it was Gelon’s aide.”

Roys let out a breath. “Damn… I’m sorry you had to see that, I don’t know what to say…”

“At first they said it was a male elf, and I was really worried it was you. Probably selfish of me, but I was relieved to see it wasn’t. That you’re okay.”

“I’m okay. I didn’t know him well, but he was a nice guy.”

“I’m sure. It’s awful.”

Roys slumped back in his chair and sighed.

“I don’t know if anyone has spoken to Gelon about it yet,” Pandora added.

“No, I mean…”

“They went straight into the meeting.”

“Yeah, they’ve been busy all morning.”

“I’m sure it’s a big day…”

Roys scratched his head. “We all just went home after the meal last night.”

“That was… that was weird, last night.”

“Yeah…”

“Roys, did you know anything about this?”

“No, of course not.”

“I mean, Adamos looked pretty… pretty angry…”

“I mean, it’s a big accusation.”

“It is, but… surely if there was no founding in that accusation, he would have just brushed it off?”

“... I know what you mean,” Roys frowned. “But, I haven’t had a chance to speak to him yet.”

“No, I wouldn’t have thought so, but…”

“I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry that you heard that.”

“No, I guess it was good to have heard it. I know I said I wished you hadn’t dragged me into this last night, but… I’m glad you dragged me into this,” she chuckled.

“Good,” Roys smiled slightly. “I knew you could handle it.”

“Yeah… Just makes everything so complicated. I mean… he’s your and Persephone’s boss.”

“Yeah. Yeah. You know, he’s a good guy, I can vouch for him, he’s a good person…”

“I don’t doubt that, but like… I suppose every government is a little corrupt, as casual as that sounds…”

“Yeah. I mean, it sounds casual, but we all know it’s true.”

“I just don’t know if there’s something I should do about it, or any of us should do about it.”

“Pandora, I… what would be done about it?”

“I don’t know…”

“If they’re suggesting it’s the whole city funding it, then it’s the city funding it,” he shrugged. “It’s not one corrupt person we could weedle out.”

“No, I guess not. Is there anything you can tell me about Adamos? Like, is he the kind of guy to keep secrets?”

“Secrets? I mean, he’s a- ”

“I know he’s a politician.”

Roys chuckled. “Yeah, I mean, you answered that for yourself, didn’t you?”

“I guess. But you would trust him?”

“Yeah. He’s like a father to me and your sister, he’s a great person. He’s loyal, and hard working, and… I don’t know, I’m inclined to think well of him.”

Pandora leaned on the desk. “I don’t know. I guess I’m at a bit of a stalemate as to… the sort of moral side of me. Thinking I should do something about it, but also… the fact that he is your boss!”

“Look, if anyone is going to do anything about it, it’s gonna be me.”

_ “Are _ you going to do anything about it?”

“I’m gonna ask him about it. He asked me to follow him, and I heard that. I’m not gonna just let it slide.”

“I’m sure he  _ knows _ you heard that…”

“Exactly. And if anything comes of that, if there’s anything I feel needs to be followed up on, then I can tell you.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

Roys shook his head. “I’m more worried about, what, Lord Toju  _ threatening _ him?”

“Yeah…”

_ “That’s _ concerning, that’s like… what about the allyship we have with Vishima, right?”

“Exactly. And if it’s going to make things difficult today in the meeting…”

“But Toju seemed to be insisting he wanted things to go  _ quickly…” _

“Which seems weird, like, they’ve come all this way…”

“Yeah, but they’ve left their island, not undefended, but…”

“You’d think that if he wanted it done so quickly, he’d just insist on it being done over correspondence.”

“Yeah… I don’t know. Politicians, you can never get a read on them,” he chuckled. “Never go into politics, Pandora.”

“It’s what my dad wants for us,” she shrugged.

“Yeah, but, you don’t have to do everything your dad says.”

“I know… but, I feel like I owe it to him. I guess we all do. I’m sure Sephie has said stuff like that in the past.”

“Of course.”

Pandora looked to the wall in the direction of the main meeting hall. “I guess there’s no knowing how long this sort of thing is going to take?”

“I mean, I’ve sat out of meetings and in meetings before that have taken twelve hours.”

“Oof. How do you do it?”

“Well, it’s a job, isn’t it?”

“I guess. I guess you do get paid to wait around…”

“Exactly. It’s their time, not mine. I’m getting paid for them to talk,” he chuckled. “But how about you and your buddies nip outside into the Agora, and enjoy yourselves? I will message you when they come out.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, yeah, that’d be nice. Thank you.”

“Just, go enjoy yourselves. There's no point for you to sit around in this stuffy building and do nothing for hours.”

“Okay. It’s good to see you, Roys.”

“And you,” he smiled.

Pandora gave him another hug, which Roys returned properly this time.

“And let me know if anything comes of your talk with Adamos,” Pandora added.

“I will.”

“Appreciate it. And give Sephie my love if you see her before me.”

“I will,” he smiled. “And I’ll see you again soon, anyway.”

“Yeah, I’ll be there for your party,” she grinned.

As they talked, Pandora looked carefully around the room. Persephone was working back in Adamos’s main office, but there were still some papers in this temporary space. There was a pile of paperwork on the desk, but it was splayed out as Roys worked on official business. She wouldn’t be able to find out what the papers said without going through them herself.

As she left, Pandora summoned Puck at the other end of the room behind Roys. If he noticed, she couldn’t tell. She left casually, giving Puck the chance to perch somewhere high and look down at the scene.

There weren’t any portraits in this room, but there was a decorative rail around the top for the bird to sit on. Roys seemed to be working on logistics, planning, and some files on naval ships, but there wasn’t anything else interesting near him. At the side however, the bird caught sight of a list of names sticking out from under some paperwork.

_ Medea Callalli _

_ Ivan Leonida _

_ Persephone Di Rossi _

There was some sort of circular stamp on the paper as well, and a few more names, but they were obscured by another page.

Pandora dismissed Puck with a wave of her hand as Icarus and Mayes appeared. “Okay, first off, Roys said he will let us know when the meeting is over if we want to go out for a bit.”

“Okay,” Icarus nodded.

“So we don’t need to just stay here if there’s nothing else you want to do.”

“I kind of want to see what’s going on in the meeting.”

“Exactly,” Mayes agreed.

“Yeah,” Pandora echoed, “But that’s an option, if we wanted to go elsewhere.”

“That’s good,” Icarus replied. “So, there’s still the other office for Hammon that we haven’t looked in. I found some letters from Alexis's brother.”

“Really? The one who is in prison?”

“Yeah. Begging his dad to exile him, rather than have him in prison, because he’s gonna be sent to work on a galley.”

“Says it’s Kondou’s fault,” Mayes added.

Pandora blinked in surprise. “Wow, for someone to want to be exiled rather than have the sentence they already have, that’s a big deal. Poor guy.”

“Kondou, though,” Icarus frowned. “Why is he involved?”

“I wonder what he did…”

“I don’t know. I think we should probably talk to Alexis again.”

“Maybe that’s why he had a reaction to the Leonida name,” Mayes considered.

“Well, Roys seems to trust his boss,” Pandora continued, “And he’s going to talk to him about the piracy thing, but… a little more uncomfortably, I saw through Puck, my sister’s name on a list.”

“What kind of list?” Icarus asked.

“I’m not sure. There was a circular stamp,” Pandora recalled, “And there was also Ivan Leonida’s name, and someone called Medea Callalli? I don’t know if either of you know that name.”

“No,” Icarus frowned.

“No,” Mayes echoed. “It could just be an invitation to something, a guest list…”

“I mean, if you want to try and get in that room, we can go take a quick peek.”

Pandora looked conflicted. “Maybe not immediately, because I’ve just been in there.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. So, shall I go back in the vent?”

“Yes, please,” Mayes urged. “Listen to them.”

Icarus grinned. “Okay.”

It had been about forty-five minutes since the meeting had started.

Icarus stripped again, offering a pile of fabric to Mayes. “You wanna take my clothes?”

Mayes sighed, and took them. “Yes.”

“Close the grate up this time. Not too tight.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll get you out,” Pandora assured him. “I’ll keep messaging you now and then, just in case you need help.”

Icarus looked around once more, but the halls were deserted. He slid back into the vent, riding the current around before he caught on to the vent to the auditorium. He overheard Adamos discussing the offer Erran was willing to make to provide Vishima with the food they needed. Erran was willing to offer 20% of their produce to Vishima each season. Toju was trying to negotiate the offer up to 25%.

At this point, Michio spoke up, offering at least 500 laborers for Erran’s agricultural industry in return for the food. Toju was immediately defensive over the offer, and asked to adjourn the meeting for a few minutes so he could speak to Michio privately.

To Icarus’s luck, Toju led Michio over to the vent.

“I just don’t think we should be bargaining the livelihoods of the Vishima people, and sending them away from our home to a foreign land,” Toju warned.

“Come now, Ito,” Michio tutted. “It’s not as if none of our citizens leave of their own free will anyway. Look at young Mayes! They’re thriving here, doing wonderfully. And we’d only be offering it to those who wanted to. What would you have us offer instead?”

At the other end of the room, Icarus saw Sato mutter something to Meiko. Meiko turned to address the room. “Lord Sato proposes we simply exchange gold for the food. We need not let anyone leave our island.”

Toju nodded where he stood. “See? A far better solution, and a quick one. We need to leave in the morning, after all.”

Michio shook his head. “What’s the rush to get back?”

Sato and Toju glanced at each other, and Toju stiffened slightly. “We should… not leave our citizens without our guidance any longer.”

From there, Gelon spoke up, and started debating the quantity of the proposed gold. The Lords rejoined the main discussion, and the Councilors bickered amongst themselves as the Lords did the same.

“We produce people more than we produce gold,” Michio insisted. “There’s so many people on our island, that solves the problem halfway if some of them leave and join the mainland…”

Seeing this discussion would go on for quite some more time, Icarus let go of the grate and had another trip around the vents. As he slid past Adamos’s office, he took another stop. He saw Roys get up from the desk, and tidy a few papers before tucking them neatly away. 

Icarus slid all the way around, dipping back under the road again before popping out of the grate, squeezing the water from his hair.

Mayes was not subtle in their glare. “Well?”

“At least let me put my clothes on!”

At this exact moment, a door opened, and Roys came out of the office with a stack of papers. Pandora quickly stood in front of Icarus, and the triton grabbed his chiton from Mayes before spinning them around to face Roys as he hurriedly changed.

If he noticed, he didn’t say anything. Roys looked over to Pandora, raised an eyebrow, waved, and left the building.

Pandora watched him leave. “...I kind of want to see what’s on that list. If it’s still there.”

“I mean, he kind of just put everything away,” Icarus apologized. “I spotted it as I went past.”

“Well I mean, that list looked like it wasn’t necessarily part of his papers.”

“Yeah, if you wanna go have a look… I think I’m gonna stay out here though, dry off.”

“Can you keep watch for me?”

“Of course.”

Pandora ran to the door, and found it unlocked. She searched through the papers, trying to be quick and through at the same time. The list was definitely gone. She did her best to put everything back where she had found it, and left.

“So,” Icarus began, “Erran is willing to offer 20% of the food that’s produced here, but Toju wanted to try and bargain them up to 25%- ”

“Okay, but how were they acting?” Mayes urged, hurrying the triton along.

“So, Michio is offering people, like, workers who want to leave the island and come here, and that kind of caused a lot of tension between him and Toju. Him and Toju came and spoke by the grate, which was  _ great, _ ha… uh… he was really irate, like,  _ don’t bargain other people’s livelihoods, _ and then Lord Sato proposed gold through Creepy.”

“Meiko.”

“Creepy Guy? Meiko, yeah. Um, Toju and Sato kind of looked at each other, they didn’t mean to, but, just a glance that made Toju become really, like…”

“He is terrified of him.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what Jiro said.”

“I don’t know, there’s something going on here… the possibility of them staying longer than tomorrow was brought up, and that’s when they looked at each other and kind of got uncomfortable. But yeah, Michio thinks people should be allowed to leave the island, because you as an example are thriving here, but Toju, and I’m assuming Sato, think the people should stay on the island.”

Pandora suddenly appeared, back from the office. “It’s gone.”

Icarus scratched his head. “Maybe ask him about it?”

“Maybe…”

He relayed the same report to Pandora, and she frowned in thought.

“So, by the sound of it,” Mayes began, “Whatever weird thing Sato and Meiko have going on… Toju knows about it?”

“I guess,” Pandora considered.

“Toju knows that there’s something… bad.”

“Yeah. He said  _ unleash.” _

“Yeah, and is… I guess, from what we saw this morning, is nervous that the longer they stay… the more people will die?”

“Yeah, I guess. He was really shaken up when we arrived here. He just wants to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“Gods…”

“Well, there’s nothing more we can do here,” Icarus concluded, “Unless you want to check out Hammon’s office as well, but I don’t know what they’ve got to do with anything. But, cover all bases…”

“Cover all bases,” Mayes echoed.

“Might as well have the full set at this point,” Pandora sighed.

“Why not. In for a silver, in for a gold.”

They headed into Hammon’s office, unlocking it to find a similar looking room. The portrait on the wall depicted the nonbinary minataur they had seen a few days earlier at the Maw. Searching the room, they turned up nothing particularly unsavory. Inside the trunk, there were a few changes of clothes, and some ceremonial armour. There was also an antiquated cone-shaped hat, adorned with celestial sigils, and a wide brim with a lovely burnt orange ribbon around it. It looked quite dusty and unloved, forgotten at the bottom of the trunk.

“Oh, this is so sad!” Icarus whimpered. “This hat deserves more.”

Pandora was quite taken by the hat. “It really does, doesn’t it…”

“Put it on!”

There was a moment of hesitation, and then she gave in. “Just for a second!”

She put it on.

“You look really cute,” Icarus giggled.

“I’m a wizard,” she posed, smiling. “Get it? Ta-da!”

“So cute!”

She laughed. “Okay, I’m going to put it back now.”

As she went to take it off, she felt a thrum of magic in the hat, as if it was calling to her. It felt similar to the sensation of casting through her crystal. “Oh, hello… This feels kind of good…”

“I mean, it suits you,” Icarus encouraged.

Mayes rolled their eyes. “You’re not stealing the Councilor’s hat.”

“I feel really weird!” Pandora agreed.

“But they don’t wear it!” Icarus argued.

Mayes gave the triton an incredulous stare. “I think they would notice if it was gone!”

“Yeah, I think they would,” Pandora worried.

Icarus wasn’t giving up. “I don’t know…”

“Icarus,” Mayes warned.

“I think it looks good…”

_ “Icarus.” _

“...Yeah?”

“We’re not thieves.”

“No, we’re not, but…”

Pandora examined the trunk, thinking to herself. “Can I…? No, I can’t…”

“Yes, you can!” Icarus encouraged.

“No, I meant, I don’t have anything that could, um…” she grew red under Mayes’ stare. “Make a… fake one… that could go in its place…”

Mayes’ jaw dropped.

“It feels nice!” Pandora protested.

Icarus grinned over to Mayes. “You’re outvoted right now.”

Pandora tried casting a little spell. As she did, she focused on the hat, and was struck by the sudden feeling that it might be able to help her cast spells that she hadn’t studied yet. Pandora let out an exasperated groan, conflicted.

“I’m on your side here!” Icarus insisted. “Take the hat!”

“Oh, Gods…”

“Take the hat!”

“I’d be stealing from a politician!”

“Yeah, but politicians steal from everyone!”

“Does that balance out the universe?”

Icarus shrugged, still grinning wide. “Yeah! It’s a cool hat!”

Mayes watched the scene unfold with a mixture of horror and astonishment. “Just because Pandora steals one hat doesn’t mean the government is going to get fixed!”

“It doesn’t mean that the government is gonna come down either,” he countered. “Take the hat.”

Pandora hesitated, looked between Mayes and Icarus, and stuffed the hat in her bag.

As Icarus celebrated, she quickly resettled the items in the trunk, covering up the missing space. “I feel like a criminal!”

Mayes crossed their arms. “What would your father say, Pandora?”

“Oh, Gods!”

Icarus turned to hush them. “You stop it! She’s allowed a nice hat.”

Suddenly, they heard talking coming from down the long hallway. They quickly swooped out of the room. Mayes stood in front of the door handle, locking the room behind their back with their trap tools as the other two sat on a nearby bench.

The minotaur was coming back with their aide. They glanced over at the students, giving them a nod before they unlocked the door to their office, and went inside. After a moment, they came back out with a few scrolls.

“Morning,” Icarus smiled.

Hammon gave a nod and a wave, and moved on.

  
  


Icarus sat in the sun, drying off for a bit. Roys came back with his lunch after an hour, greeting them quickly before heading back into his office.

“We can probably go get lunch,” Icarus realized. “If he’s back.”

“Yeah,” Pandora nodded.

The trio left, grabbing lunch and resting for a bit. As they sat in the sun, far away from the Council building, Pandora took out the beautiful wide brimmed hat. She sat with it for a while, studying it. The hat even had holes for Hammon’s horns, which fit over hers perfectly.

Mayes took out the symbol of Pelor they had rediscovered last night, turning it over in their hands as they thought about the events of the past twenty-four hours. Not entirely sure what to say, they offered a little prayer.

_ We don’t talk much, but… I appreciate you. _

Focusing on the token, they felt a small warmth in their chest. It felt like sunlight on their skin, but from the inside.

  
  


They returned to the council building. The meeting ended nearly four hours after it had started.

Toju came out in a bad mood. Sato looked almost as stoic as usual, though he seemed almost slightly entertained. Michio also looked a bit grouchy, but he immediately lightened up at the sight of the students. He asked if they could go to the water gardens next, as he needed some time to relax and clear his mind after such a frustrating meeting. He explained that they had not reached a conclusion yet.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Pandora replied. “Yes, of course we can go, straightaway.”

“Good, good,” Michio sighed. “That would be a relief. I just need to be outside in nature somewhere.”

“Well the watergardens are perfect for that.”

“And it’s a lovely, sunny day,” Mayes smiled.

“It is!” Michio grinned. “Let’s enjoy ourselves.”

They headed across Erran by carriage again to the Errani water gardens. They entered through a beautiful courtyard of red tiles below sandy columns and archways to a rectangular building with open balconies along the top, and a channel of water that flowed through it all the way into the gardens beyond.

The gardens were a tiered expanse of lush greenery with beautiful water features and fountains. Statues spewed water from the pursued lips of carved nymphs and satyr girls. Stones were carved in the shape of pots, pouring a constant flow between them, while a decorative colonnade enchanted with a waterfall effect stood to another side. The sound of rushing water echoed all around them, bringing a sense of peace to the gardens. Despite everything going on, being here was like taking a deep breath of peace at long last.

There were other features, including more natural ponds filled with huge goldfish and lily pads. The greenery was extremely uncommon for Erran, as the gardens were full of exotic plants from all over the continent carefully planted to make walkways, with benches and places to sit throughout. They could see a life size marble statue of a winged horse and a winged bull in the distance, and to each end of the garden was a small area for refreshments.

The Lords began walking around by themselves with their aides, unwinding and exploring the area.

In the center of the garden was a shrine to the Goddess Melora. The plant life there seemed to bloom far more beautifully than anywhere else, with an array of exotic, colorful flowers surrounding it.

None of the Lords seemed up for conversation. Mayes kept an eye on Meiko, but other than that, they relaxed and enjoyed the gardens. Eventually, Mayes headed over to find Jiro. As Michio noticed them approach, he waved his aide away. “Go on, Jiro. Go talk to your friend.”

With Jiro dismissed, Michio went over to join Toju and Sho so that he was still with a guard.

Jiro headed over. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“How are you doing?”

“Good. Long day so far.”

“Yeah.”

“How was everything in that meeting?”

“It was intense,” Jiro admitted. “Borning.”

“I can imagine.”

The pair shared a quiet laugh.

“Um, not to cut straight to the point,” Mayes continued, “But you know I asked if you could do something for me earlier?”

“Yeah?”

“When we get back, after this, do you mind just… distracting Meiko for a bit?”

“...Yeah, sure?”

“There’s just something a little bit off about him, I can’t quite place my finger on.”

Jiro chuckled. “You think?”

“Yeah, but um… I don’t know, you know how my sword went missing last night…”

“Yeah?”

“...He’s been watching me a lot. I don’t want to point any fingers without knowing a bit more, but… if he’s taken my sword, I kind of want to find it.”

“You’re going to see if it’s in his room or something?”

“Yeah,” they admitted.

“Okay, I can distract.”

“Thank you. I know it’s a really wild thing to jump to, but, it’s the only person I can think of close to us right now who would do something like that.”

“It’s fine. It’s a little more extreme than the mischief I used to drag you into,” he grinned, “But…”

“Yeah, no one’s made me go into a ghost house since I’ve been to Erran,” Mayes grinned.

“Well you’re missing out,” Jiro teased.

“Well, how many ghost houses have you been to since we were kids?”

“Yeah, it’s true,” he admitted. “I told you I stay away from the woods, and mostly away from… that superstitious stuff.”

“That’s smart.”

“Sure. Well, you want me to do it as soon as we get back?”

“Give it, like, maybe five to ten minutes,” Mayes nodded. “And then…”

“Yeah.”

“Just, I guess, make sure to lead him past our room so that we know when you’re doing it.”

“Sure.”

“Thank you.”

“You got it.”

Mayes leaned in, nudging Jiro with their shoulder. “You know there’s… no hard feelings about anything, right?”

“...Yeah?”

“Good. Whatever people say back home, it’s not how I feel, so…”

Jiro nudged them back. “…It’s way too hot to be wearing this clothing. I’m gonna go sit in the shade.”

“Cool.”

“Hopefully it will be.”

Mayes grinned. “See you later.”

The trio of students relaxed in the gardens, but nothing else happened. It seemed that everyone needed the time to unwind after such a stressful morning.

  
  


Before it grew dark, they all climbed back into the carriages, and headed back into the villa. As they stepped inside, Jiro caught Mayes’ eye and gave them a slight nod. The students headed to their room, and Mayes explained the plan to the others.

After about fifteen minutes, they heard Jiro making quite a show of walking down the hall. “Oh yeah, I just wanted to check down here, you know, after something going missing, we should check the security breaches…”

He led Meiko along, and they disappeared off down the corridor, their footsteps followed by the sound of a door opening, and then closing behind.

The trio snuck out, heading back around to the Lord’s side of the building. There was no one in the hallway, and they were able to unlock the door and slip into Meiko’s room.

The room was basically identical to the others, and put together to almost a military level of neatness, with tucked sheets held tightly under the sides of the bed. There were a few more trunks in this room, and the same smell of herb covered meats permeated the air. The curtains had been folded as well, as an attempt to hide where the drapes had been slightly shredded.

Mayes found more pouches of herbs. They were seemingly tucked everywhere, in every corner, including the pillow and the windowsill. Additionally, there were some suspicious claw marks by the window, as if something had climbed through. Peering outside and into the gardens, Pandora spotted some upturned earth where something had moved from Meiko’s room towards the water features.

Icarus went straight for the luggage. Fiddling with the first trunk, they got it open. Inside, he saw what was clearly the remains of a limb. The stench hit him in the face. It looked like meat on a bone, the misshapen remains of some kind of calf muscle, missing the foot. Interestingly, it looked quite surgically removed. Some serrated marks at the end of it suggested it may have been sawed.

“There is a… limb… in here. Looks like it used to be a leg.”

Mayes blinked. “Oh…”

“Like, human leg?” Pandora worried.

Icarus looked back into the trunk. “Yeah.”

The smell was starting to fill the room. It was rancid.

Pandora turned back to the garden. “Something big jumped out the window here,” she reported.

Icarus closed the lid, and moved on to the next few trunks. Eventually, he found a journal, a golden dinner plate with some sort of runes around the rim, and a set of golden cutlery with a two pronged fork and very serrated, pointed knife.

Pandora looked over his shoulder, pointing to the plate. “These are Transmutation runes.”

“So that would, what?”

“Turn one thing into something else.”

“...The knife that’s with the plate,” Icarus realized, “It matches the slices on the limb that was in the…”

“He’s… he’s  _ eating _ it…”

“Yeah. What’s he turning it into, though?”

She took another look at the runes, but they weren’t strung together in a sensical way. “I don't know. It doesn’t create a spell or anything, it’s just… it’s like he’s stamped the word  _ Transmutation _ over and over.”

Icarus opened the journal, flicking quickly through the pages. All of the writing was in an unknown language, but flipping to the back, he found a list of numbers. Meiko had marked off up to 99, and there was one box left at the bottom for 100, with a box yet unmarked and circled.

“What is it?” Pandora asked.

Icarus handed her the journal.

“Okay, this is methodical,” Pandora frowned.

“The rest of it is kind of…” he flipped through the other pages, showing the strange language. “I don’t know. But if I spend a night, I can read this in the morning.”

Pandora looked up with concern. “You think if you take it? He’s going to notice this is gone.”

“Especially if he seems to be counting down to something,” Mayes added.

“What is he counting? Days? Or…”

Icarus glanced back over to the box with the limb. “…People?”

“But,” Mayes considered, “I had something stolen last night.”

“But if he was the one that stole it, then…”

“But then he would have to out himself to point that out.”

“Even if you take, maybe a page?” Pandora compromised.

Icarus looked back at the journal. “Yeah.”

Suddenly, the door connecting Meiko’s room to another creaked slightly open. The trio stopped dead, but nothing else happened. It didn’t open further, and they couldn’t see around the door to the other side.

Icarus silently gestured to the others, motioning to the window.

Icarus took the journal, and the trio climbed out the window, making their way back to their rooms. They stepped carefully around the flowerbeds, but luckily, there was nobody around to see them.

“That was really creepy,” Pandora shuddered.

“That was really intense,” Mayes agreed.

“Yeah. So, he’s counting down to something, and he’s very nearly finished whatever it is he’s doing.”

“Well, okay, the alarming question about that… was today 99, or is today 100?”

“I don’t know,” Pandora fretted. “It just indicates something is gonna happen really soon.”

“Yeah…”

“And transmutation on the knife and fork and plate, and human flesh… Like, is he trying to turn the flesh into something?”

“Or something into flesh?”

“Or is  _ he _ trying to turn into something?”

“But if he is some sort of creature,” Mayes countered, “Then he kind of already does that.”

“I don’t know. This is weird, this is really weird. Do we show Jiro any of this?”

“I don’t know if he would know anything.”

“Maybe,” Icarus shrugged. “It’s been years since you guys have been in touch, you don’t know.”

“Yeah, like… I know he’s superstitious and all, but if I go up and ask him about acts of cannibalism… it’s gonna raise some questions. Anyway, he’s still distracting Meiko at the moment, as far as we know.”

They sat, and the evening passed.

  
  


After a while, they dressed up in their fancy black pallors with the colored trims representing their houses, styling their hair and polishing their armour, swords, and shields for their night at the music hall. Mayes was sure to take extra care of Michio’s sword.

As evening rolled around, the group gathered once again in the lobby of the villa, and they made their way down to the Erran docks. This time, they bypassed the harbour itself, taking a slow, leisurely stroll along the sea wall. The Lords themselves turned many heads in their formal dress, standing out from the style of Erran, and flanked by armed guards and Delphos guides.

As they approached the final venue in the Lords’ tour of Erran, they strolled through the sights and smells of the coastal night market. Hanging lanterns illuminated the path, glinting off wares, and the smell of street food permeated the air. Light from the colored lanterns bounced off the sandstone walls of the city and the choppy waters of the bay, while dozens of sellers peddled their crafts and wares in a similar scene to that of the Agora. A nearby bard read out a playful poem to anyone who cared to listen. Michio slowed the group as they went, stopping to buy a few trinkets at the market as gifts for his nephew back in Vishima.

The music hall itself was across a rope bridge from the sea wall into the inside of a huge cave mouth on the cliffside. They were met at the end of the bridge on the Errani side by a member of staff from the hall, who greeted their group and guided them across the bridge to the cave. Though their eyes had previously strained in the dim light of the starry night outside, they were met by a bright stone pathway lined with flickering glass lanterns. The flames inside danced on the damp walls of the cavernous path, and the acoustics of the subterranean walkway amplified the murmuring of other patrons walking in ahead of them, the sound reverberating and heightining, tricking the ear into assuming there were far more people than they could see.

As they walked through, their group was guided down towards the main cavern, and given something of a tour as the staff talked them through the area. They passed one or two smaller walkways as they progressed, offshoots of the main cave tunnel, roped off with plush velvet ropes. The staff member explained that those routes were dangerously steep and off limits, as the slabs of stone underfoot were often loose, and by the trickle of water coming through the rock and condensation down the walls, the paths could be slippery and dangerous, sometimes crumbling away.

As they were given the tour, the students noticed Sho cozying up slightly to Sato’s side. In moments where the two were slightly separated, the trio caught a few knowing looks between them.

A few minutes of echoing footsteps down the main pathway rewarded them with the resplendent sight of the cavern the hall was famous for. It was a vast, echoing hall, perhaps 120 feet in each direction with a 60 foot high ceiling, its interior hollowed out through hundreds of years of water erosion into the rock underneath the Errani hills. Their villa was somewhere high above.

A raised stage sat at one end, with chairs set for about thirty musicians. Water dripped faintly from the stalactites clinging to the ceiling, and more chairs stood in rows facing the stage, waiting to be filled by the eager patrons. The majority of the floor was extravagantly carpeted in red, likely set to differentiate between solid ground and the pools of water dotted around the space. The pools weren’t entirely still, as a result of the many vibrations of footsteps around them, but they were incredibly reflective, giving the illusion of holes through the floor as it reflected the ceiling.

The natural structure seemed perfectly suited to enhance echo and vibrations, and the discussions in the audience filled the hall, creating beautiful acoustics as the sound bounced off the rock. In the large forming crowd, the Lords of Vishima were singled out by the staff members and led to the front row to be seated right in front of the stage, where the best seats in the house were reserved for the wealthiest patrons. In moments, the Delphos students were separated from them, and seated several rows back. The seats beside them were empty, presumably for the honor guards, though the aides hadn’t caught up with them yet.

They sat in the audience, spending a few minutes waiting for the performance to start. More people crowded into the room, filling the seats.

Mayes leaned towards the others. “What do you think we should do with this?”

“I don’t know,” Pandora frowned.

“You don’t want to start a political uprising,” Icarus half teased.

“I don’t want to start a political uprising,” Mayes sighed. “If suspicions are correct, and Toju knows about it… telling him isn’t going to do anything.”

“No, he’s not,” Pandora agreed.

“We can go to Michio,” Icarus suggested. “But I’m not sure what it’s going to do.”

“I guess we just… be on our guard?”

“They’re leaving tomorrow,” Mayes replied. “Do we try and confront Meiko before, or…?”

Icarus shook his head. “I don’t know if they are.”

“Michio wants to stay,” Pandora recalled.

Mayes sighed. “I know.”

“Well, they didn’t come to any kind of agreement today,” Icarus shrugged.

“So hopefully, they’ll be here longer.”

“They mentioned at the dock they’re going to have to continue,” Pandora added.

Mayes let out another sigh, rubbing their forehead with both hands.

Pandora glanced over at them. “You okay, Mayes?”

“I’m just stressed,” they frowned.

“I know. It’s been a stressful visit.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess we can just… be on our guard.”

“Yeah. Let’s just enjoy the evening,” Icarus smiled.

Mayes looked down at their feet. “I feel kind of helpless.”

  
  


As it grew closer to the performance, they noted that strangely, the seats next to them were still empty. As the audience settled down and musicians began moving to the stage to set up, Jiro headed towards them from across the room, looking frantic.

He headed straight over. “There you are. Don’t say anything to the Lords, we need to sort this out quickly. Something’s happening.”

“Is everything okay?” Pandora worried.

“I saw Meiko go down one of the side tunnels that were roped off.”

Mayes’ brow furrowed. “Okay…”

“Why would he?”

“Show us,” Mayes agreed, standing.

“Okay.”

The trio slipped away. As they did, they glanced back to the Lords. Michio and Toju were both in their seats at the front, but Sato was missing.

The four of them headed out of the main hall. The attendants watched them go, but didn’t stop them.

They stood by the entrance to a smaller passageway, waiting for a group of people to pass by before stepping under the rope. Jiro led them down, but it was quite a slippery and dangerous path. Keeping their hands on the wall, they stepped down carefully as bits of the path crumbled underneath them. They made their way to a spot in the path that had collapsed slightly, and climbed carefully down.

“He definitely went this way,” Jiro insisted. “And if he's not here, he’s got to be deeper in.”

Icarus eyed him, slightly suspicious. Jiro had been largely stoic, but now he looked frantic.

“Meiko must have gone through a lot of trouble to come down this way,” Pandora commented.

Icarus glanced around at the others. “Did anyone else see that Sato’s gone?”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

They climbed further down, and the thin, broken, slippery path opened out into another cavern. It was steeper, and not as big as the cavern with the music hall, but it was considerably large, and much older. There were a number of huge stalagmites sticking out of the ground, blocking their view of the far end, but they could hear voices speaking in that same unknown language down at the end of the cave.

Jiro turned to them with a finger to his lips. “Shh! Let’s be quiet.”

Pandora waved a hand, preparing her magical defenses. The group moved slowly forwards. Icarus’s armour made a small noise, but he hugged his arms around himself, trying to keep it still. Pandora’s foot hit a small rock, sending it rolling away. The group paused, but the voices continued.

They creeped up to one of the larger stalagmites, flattening themselves against it. Mayes stood at the front, with Icarus and Pandora sandwiched between them and Jiro. They peered out as best they could, trying to hear around it.

The same strange language passed back and forth. They saw a glint of gold from Meiko’s golden hand, and the same looming creature Mayes had seen last night appeared out of the dark. It was larger than a human, and much wider, with blueish skin and huge, protruding lower teeth that stood out from an almost bulbous jawline. The creature had long, wild hair coming off the back of its head, with massive horns sticking back from its skull that seemed to shine in the slight light of a few lanterns hung about the space. Strangely, it was wearing large clothes, seemingly tailored for it. As it looked around the room, they could see that its eyes were dark, with shining white pupils.

Mayes felt Daichi thrumming with panic. Flashes shot through Mayes’ mind, and they saw themself standing around a campfire, staring out into the woods, and seeing this same creature circling the trees.

Meiko was still holding the glaive. He spoke with the creature a moment longer before the immense figure turned, and looked up at Mayes, exactly where they stood.

The creature spoke. “Come on out. I know you’re there.”

Mayes slipped out their katana, and stepped forward. As they did, they saw a body laying on the floor between them.

It was Jiro.

They glanced back over their shoulder, and Jiro was gone.

The creature gave a wicked grin with his giant teeth, its white eyes fixed on them. “Come a little closer. It’s time I deal with you once and for all, Hasagawa.”

Mayes stared up at it, their voice quiet. “What do you want from me?”

It tilted its monstrous head, locking eyes with them. “I want you to die,” it grinned.

Behind the creature, Meiko was clutching the glaive, shaking slightly. “Please, Lord Sato, let me help!”

The creature turned its head around, furious.

“Please!” Meiko pointed to Jiro on the floor. “Let me eat him, let me begin my transformation, and I can help you kill them!”

Immediately, the ogre-like form of Lord Sato turned on Meiko, fury taking over its features. It grabbed him by the throat, lifting him into the air. Meiko struggled, hand at his side, dropping the glaive to the ground. “I was going to become like you,” Meiko protested through the suffocation, his voice rasping. “I was going to transform!”

“You were too much of a fool,” Sato replied. “As if I was ever going to give you that power.”

Meiko dangled in the air, gasping for air as he pleaded. “I cut off my hand for you! I ate it!”

In a single motion, the creature crushed Meiko’s throat, and hurled the body against a rock.

As he did, the trio noticed another shape with a weapon, creeping around the other side of the cave. Sho locked eyes with them, pressing a finger to her lips. She stepped towards Sato, opened her mouth, and spoke in that same strange language. Taking her weapon off her back, she unwrapped another glaive. Sato reached down, picking up the first one.

As the trio readied their weapons, they heard the music begin from the concert above, echoing through the chambers.

Sho stepped forwards. Shedding her air genasi disguise, she began transforming into another ogre-like creature with a slightly more feminine form. The glaive grew in her hand to fit her new size.

She pointed down towards Jiro. “You should have left him out of it. You know too much, and now you’re all going to have to die.”

“Not that easy,” Icarus returned.

Immediately, she ran forwards and jumped, taking off into the air and flying above them. A shock of cold magic burst towards them, and Icarus and Pandora stumbled back with the blow. Moving again, Sho cast another spell, centering a fifteen foot sphere of magical darkness around Icarus’s armour. The darkness surrounded the trio, making it impossible to see.

Icarus lifted his holy symbol, praying to Kord. A tidal wave of water emerged out of him, passing harmlessly over his allies as five nereids swam through, their forms nearly impossible to discern from the water itself. Pandora and Mayes felt nothing, but they could hear the rush of water nearby as Icarus sent out the spell. He ran out of the darkness, and the nereids struck, burning Sho with radiant light as Sato managed to fend off the worst of the attack. Icarus lifted his shield, preparing himself for the counterstrike.

Mayes ran forwards, pelting under Sho to charge straight up to Sato. They were too enraged to even speak. Instead of attacking, they finally gave in, and let Daichi out.

Icarus watched as Mayes sprinted past, bracing themselves before a ghostly essence spread over them. Daichi’s face materialized, screaming at Sato. A horrifying shock passed through Icarus, chilling him to the bone, but he managed to shake off the effect. Sho turned in fear, starting to back away.

Sato just twisted his head, looking down at Mayes with a toothy grin. He seemed unbothered, and almost amused to see Daichi’s face again.

Pandora stepped out of the darkness, sending a wave of necrotic energy towards Sho before pulling out her dagger.

The nereid spirits whipped through Sato’s large, ogre-like body. He didn’t seem bothered by the attack, and seconds later, he vanished.

Sho, batting off her own nereids, flew straight towards Pandora. The ogress cast a spell with a wave of her hand, and Pandora felt herself growing incredibly drowsy on her feet. When she managed to shake it off, the bulbous, monstrous face of Sho’s grew enraged as she stared down at the tiefling. Turning her head, she sent the same glare after Mayes.

Icarus summoned his spiritual weapon, running after Sho. The nereids surrounded her once more as his spiritual weapon flew in, slashing across her. As the blade made contact, Sho winced, and the darkness spell was dropped.

With Sato vanished, Mayes swapped their greek sword for their crossbow and took aim at Sho. Studying their target for a moment, they fired, landing a direct hit. Mayes was absolutely livid.

Pandora reached out to her arcane focus, and a green bolt of necrotic energy shot forth. Sho swung out of the way in the air, dodging the attack.

Pandora grimaced. “Dammit!”

Suddenly, Sato reappeared behind Icarus and Pandora. Though the nereids immediately turned on him, Sato fired out at the students with a strong blast of cold energy. The pair quickly scurried back, using their defenses to ward off the worst of it.

Moments after, Sho disappeared.

Turning back to Sato, Icarus swung and missed with his physical sword, but the ghostly form of the same weapon flew around from the other side to stab into the creature.

“Not so handsome under that face, are you?” Icarus taunted.

Mayes moved in, landing a double strike on the creature with Michio’s sword. Pandora threw another bit of water over herself, preparing a magical shield before running to Sato herself. She tried her best to stab the massive creature with her small dagger, but the Lord easily dodged.

Sato looked between the three of them, and singled out Mayes. The creature swung the huge glaive down, carving down the front of their chest. Without attempting to dodge, Mayes took the full force of it, looking the beast dead in the eyes. “You’re a menace to my home,” they declared. “And I  _ will _ kill you.”

Another glaive dug into their back as the monstrous form of Sho suddenly reappeared on the ground behind them.

Mayes refused to react. Around them, Icarus was carving into Sato with his sword as the spiritual blade cut past, but the Lord had eyes only for Mayes. Brandishing Michio’s sword, Mayes swung towards Sato, raking the blade across his monstrous form before spinning around to cleave into Sho.

Pandora flung a packet of powder on the ground, and a massive burst of fire shot up from the floor, encircling Mayes in the center of the cone as the spell burned at the creatures flanking them. 

As the fire dispersed, the trio watched the burns across the creatures’ skin begin to retract. The ogers were healing themselves in battle.

“That’s cheating!” Icarus protested, sending his nereids back towards the beasts.

Immediately, the trio found themselves surrounded in darkness again. Sensing Sato was about to escape, Mayes took a blind swing. They managed to stab into Sato once more, as did Icarus, but they felt Sato leaving the sphere of darkness, rushing off to somewhere else in the cave.

There was a noise of pain from outside the darkness as Sho cried out, followed by the giggling of nereids.

Icarus ran out of the darkness, but neither of the two creatures were visible. “Didn’t take the great Lord as a coward!”

He readied his sword as Mayes ran up behind them, doing the same as the pair looked around for Sato.

Pandora followed the others, drawing arcane sigils across her face. As the spell settled, she opened her eyes to see the invisible. Her vision flooded outwards, and though she instantly saw Sho flying just above the others, Sato was nowhere to be found.

She pointed upwards. “Sho is there!”

From somewhere behind the stalagmites in the distance, Sato shouted something in Giant to Sho.

Sho, eyes flicking to Pandora, flew directly down towards her. As she landed on the ground, the darkness behind them dropped. Suddenly visible again, Sho swung towards Pandora. As the blow hit, Pandora’s earlier defensive spell exploded outwards in counterattack, smashing into her right as the creature was starting to heal itself.

Mayes looked back over to the stalagmites, noticing a strange wisp of smoke where Sato had been.

Icarus sent his nereids through Sho again, driving his sword into her once more. “Come on, Pandora! We got this.”

Pandora gave him a little grin as the triton’s healing magic settled on her. “Yeah, I know.”

Leaving Sho, Mayes hurried over to the stalagmites to investigate the cloud of mist that had appeared there, but found nothing. Frustrated, Mayes hugged the wall, hiding for a moment as they pulled out their crossbow again. Another bolt soared across the cave, digging into Sho.

Pandora reached out with one hand, grabbing the creature’s shoulder as she sent out another necrotic spell. Icarus watched the spell leap from Pandora and into Sho, causing the creature to begin to crumble away. As she drained the life from Sho, she channeled the energy back into herself, regaining her strength. With the other hand, she jabbed her seablade into Sho, pulling the dagger upwards through her chest cavity and into her throat. The body withered, decayed, and collapsed onto the ground.

“Yes Pandora!” Icarus cheered.

Sho’s body transformed where it fell, reverting to the form of a typical human woman from Vishima. She was wearing a wooden mask that looked disturbingly familiar.

Mayes looked back to the stalagmites, but now, even the smoke was gone. Sato was nowhere to be seen.

Icarus ran over to Jiro, quickly checking him over for wounds. He was unconscious, but he came to as the triton gently shook him awake, looking slightly dazed and confused.

“Hey, buddy,” Icarus smiled. “We got you.”

“What?”

“We got you.”

Jiro glanced around, panic creeping into his tone. “Where am I?”

“Um, in a cave. Don’t even worry about it…”

Feeling a bit of relief with Jiro awake, Mayes continued to look around, but there was nothing to see. Abruptly turning, they started to run back to the exit. “We need to get back to the Lords!”

Pandora searched around for anyone invisible, but she couldn’t find anything. She reached down for the mask. As soon as the mask fell from Sho’s face, a strange feeling came over everyone in the room.

They all wanted nothing more than to get their hands on that mask.

Pandora picked it up, holding it close to her chest as she noticed the others staring at her. “This is mine.”

Jiro got up, walking unsteadily towards Pandora with the same desire. He tried to grab it off her, clutching at the wooden mask, but she pulled it away.

Icarus stepped forwards, and the nereids still swimming around him charged, darting through the pair. Jiro, already weak, fell instantly back to the floor.

As Icarus yanked the mask from Pandora, Mayes ran forwards. Daichi’s spirit leapt out of Mayes’ body, trying to push its way into Icarus, but the triton managed to shake him off.

With a sudden start, Pandora came to her senses. Realizing what was happening to her friends, she waved her hand, and the area was suddenly filled with darkness. “Stop!”

Despite the darkness, the nereids were still attacking, rushing through Pandora and Mayes.

“Icarus, stop!” Pandora pleaded.

Holding the mask in his hands, Icarus moved away from the others, stepping out of the darkness. All he could think to do was bring it up to his face. As he did, immediately, he felt it fix firm to his head.

In the back of his mind, he heard a hideous laugh in his ear. Icarus wanted nothing more than to keep it, to learn it and study it until he understood the mask’s true power, and use it as his own.

Mayes stepped out of the darkness, but as they realized Icarus was now wearing it, the urge to have it for themselves suddenly diminished. They stepped forwards anyway, doing their best to dodge the nereids as they sent Daichi out again, but Icarus managed to fend off the spirit once more.

Mayes levied their sword at the mask.

With the mask now on his face, Icarus began to feel sensible again. The nereids disappeared from existence.

Mayes stared Icarus down from across the blade. “Hey Icarus.”

“…Hey…”

“You wanna take that thing off?”

“Uh… shit, I’m so sorry…”

There was silence in the room.

Icarus tentatively brought his fingers to his chin, trying to peel the wood back and remove it, but it wasn’t coming off. Pandora and Mayes looked on with the realization that the mask had somehow shrunk to fit the triton’s face exactly.

Mayes lowered their sword, and rushed over to Jiro. He was stable, but he wasn’t awake.

As they did, Pandora stepped towards Icarus, trying to pull the mask from his face. “Get off!”

With a massive effort, Pandora tore the mask from Icarus. The mask was still calling to be worn, but this time, they were able to resist the pull.

Icarus shook his head, looking down at the mask. “Pandora, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“We’ll talk about it later,” she tersely interrupted.

Mayes took off a layer of Sho’s clothing, using the fabric to wrap up the mask. She looked like a regular human woman from Vishima now. Icarus picked up her glaive, and hoisted her onto his shoulder.

Pandora pointed to the other body. “Meiko as well.”

“Yeah,” Icarus frowned.

There were several pouches of herbs on Meiko’s body, and up close, he smelled heavily of sweat.

“I don’t really want to carry the meat sweat man,” Mayes grimaced.

Pandora glanced down at the body. “You can take the hand.”

“I can take the hand…”

They unbuckled the prosthetic, and took it. Next, they slowly roused Jiro. He was very weak, but Mayes was able to aid him out of the tunnel, asking him what had happened as they made the climb back up.

“I… I don’t remember,” Jiro blinked with effort, shaking his head. “I think… I think they charmed me.”

“Oh, great.”

“Must have been what happened to you in the woods, because I can barely remember.”

“Huh… I guess that makes sense, considering… considering that everyone just stood still, while they… while  _ he _ … ate them,” Mayes looked down at the cave floor. “But he got away.”

“We need to find the Lords.”

“Yeah.”

“You three are a mess. Maybe I should go find them, and you should wait somewhere the staff aren’t gonna see you?”

“Yeah,” Pandora agreed. “We can wait here, in the tunnel, I suppose.”

Jiro shakily tidied himself up. For the most part, he didn’t appear to be as rough as the other three. He straightened his robe, took a deep breath, and walked out of the tunnel. “Okay…”

Ducking under the rope, he hurried up towards the music hall.

The trio stood in awkward silence as they waited. Icarus took out the healing ointment he had purchased a few days earlier, offering the last of it to Pandora.

She took it. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Next, Icarus pulled out one of his potions, offering it to Mayes.

They refused.

“Please take it,” Icarus urged. “I hurt you.”

“...Keep it for yourself.”

“I’m  _ fine.” _

Mayes was pacing around the room. “I don’t want it, Icarus.”

Ten minutes later, Jiro brought Toju and Michio down the tunnel. Toju led the way, striding in front as Michio followed behind, quiet and shocked.

“Jiro has explained the barebones,” Toju began. “I think we should discuss this in private back at the villa.”

“We’re sorry to cut your evening short,” Pandora apologized.

Icarus fixed Lord Toju with a stare. “Where is Lord Sato?”

Toju met his gaze. “I don’t know.”

“He didn’t return to you?”

“No. Quickly now…” Toju stepped away to have a word with one of the staff members, dropping a heavy pouch of gold into their hand.

The staff member brought over large pieces of fabric for them to disguise the two bodies. Michio took the limp form of Meiko, carrying it over his shoulder like a bail of hay.

The group hurried across the rope bridge to where the staff had brought the carriage down, clearing the road for them.

They got in, and journeyed back to the villa in silence.

Mayes glared at Toju the entire time.

  
  


They headed into the lounge of the villa, lying down the bodies.

Michio sighed. “So tell us everything that happened.”

Mayes stared up at their other guest. “I think you already know, Lord Toju.”

“We were watching the concert,” Toju replied with a frown, his tone more demanding than Michio’s. “Tell us what happened.”

Mayes crossed their arms. “Why are you so scared of Lord Sato?”

Toju’s eyes flashed. “You will speak to me with  _ respect.” _

Mayes wasn’t backing down. “You will treat your  _ citizen _ with the respect that you  _ haven’t _ been. Tell me the truth.”

Toju slapped them.

Mayes took it.

The others stood in shocked silence for a moment.

“Mayes…” Pandora mumbled. “We should fill them in on the details.”

Mayes didn’t take their eyes off Toju. “Go on, then.”

Pandora explained what had happened; following Jiro, watching the monstrous form of Sato kill Meiko, realizing that Sho was working with him, and fighting off the pair of creatures before defeating Sho as Sato ran off.

As she explained, Michio’s face twisted in utter shock. It was clear he hadn’t known any of this.

“But of course,” Icarus continued, “My Lord Toju is quite aware of things going on, considering you were talking of threatening one of the council members,” he smiled unkindly. “About unleashing something on the city.”

Michio turned to Toju, looking him up and down with disappointment. “So this is what you were so scared about when you said,  _ I didn’t know what Sato could unleash.” _

Toju pursued his lips “Quite. Do you know how many years that thing has threatened our island? He sent Sho to me just to tighten his grip. In my defense, I didn’t know it was Sato himself.”

“But you let it happen,” Mayes countered.

Toju shook his head. “What else could I have done?”

“Fight  _ back.” _

“Against what? A creature that I didn’t know where it was, what it could do, just…” he trailed off, looking away.

“It’s somewhere on  _ our _ island now,” Icarus replied.

“Well I’m happy to see the back of it.”

Icarus tilted his head, offering another tight smile. “Not so happy to see it here. Considering it’s already killed an aide to one of the councilmen this morning, where we drove past.”

“...I understand that.”

Icarus pulled out the journal. “Can you read this?”

Toju gave it a glance. “No idea.”

Michio looked it over, nodding. “That is the language of giant folk. I can’t read it, but, I’m familiar.”

“Perhaps someone at Delphos can read it,” Pandora considered.

“What you came up against,” Michio began, “It’s called an Oni. Something of folklore legend on our islands. It presents… a couple of problems…”

Toju gave him a look, surprised by his knowledge.

“I did have my suspicions, with people disappearing,” Michio continued, “But they didn’t happen often enough in my region. It does present some problems, first that… by now, Sato probably could have disguised himself as anyone or anything. Unfortunately, they can change shape at will.”

“That’s uncomfortable,” Icarus muttered.

“Change size… could be a goblin in the city, could be an ogre in the mountains by now. The better thing is that, supposedly, they’re only at home in the mountains, and he probably won’t stay in the city. Not that that’s…. particularly better, but… I imagine that the creature will probably flee. …I am so sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“I am. This has been running rampant on our home island. I can see Ito here is terrified, quite embarrassingly so…”

Toju did still seem a bit scared. “Yes, I’m embarrassed by my cowardice,” he admitted.

Mayes shook their head with disbelief. “The amount of people that you just let  _ die… _ That’s sick.”

“I was protecting so many more. So many people who could live happy and unknowing lives, and not be threatened by that thing. By both of them. I’m protecting my citizens, but I’m glad to see- ”

“By sacrificing them?” Icarus interrupted.

Mayes looked up at the Lord with disgust. “I’d be dead if it wasn’t for dumb luck.”

“I am sorry for that,” Toju replied. “But… sacrifice the few, protect the many… Always seemed like the best way to go about it when there weren’t many other options.”

Mayes glanced over to Jiro. He was shocked, but they could see him piecing things together in his mind. He was hanging back, seeming rather depressed about it, and still looking pretty ragged.

“Right,” Michio sighed. “Well, I suppose we’re going to have to deal with this, one way or another. For now, at least, we can feel content that it will be fleeing your city and disappearing somewhere else, for the time being.”

“For the time being, but for how long? It needs to feed again at some point,” Pandora worried.

Michio nodded. “He has no… human servants,” he glanced quickly to Toju, “to help him out now. All I can suggest is that we inform the authorities here of such a creature, and that it is watched out for.”

“Did he ever seem like the kind of person to hold a grudge?” Mayes asked.

“He didn’t seem like the kind of person to do much.”

“Well, I mean, he remembered your name,” Icarus recalled, looking back to Mayes. “And that you were at the bonfire that time. I’d say that’s pretty… grudgy…”

“I’d say so too,” Mayes agreed. “I don’t mind being a target for awhile.”

“Mayes,” Pandora warned.

“It means we can get him.”

“You keep pinning these targets on your back, though,” Icarus cautioned.

Mayes shrugged. “Just needs to be done.”

Icarus nudged them. “We’re with you, okay?”

“I know.”

“I guess we’re not going to find him any other way,” Pandora frowned. 

“No,” Icarus agreed.

“Could be anyone, could be anywhere… Could be invisible.”

Michio rubbed his face. “I would ask… that you keep this quiet, so that we can deal with it professionally and politically.”

“Of course,” Icarus nodded.

“This is… huge.”

“Yeah.”

“And it needs to be taken care of in the right way.”

“Of course,” Mayes agreed.

“Would you give us permission to search their rooms?” Icarus asked.

Michio sighed. “Yeah.”

“Thank you.”

“What should we do about the…” Mayes whistled, circling their face with a finger.

“The mask?” Icarus guessed.

“Yeah.”

“It goes back in that box, I guess.”

“Goes back in the box,” Mayes echoed.

“Or destroyed. Can we burn it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, it’s a mask that made me do shitty things, so… I don’t mind seeing the back of it.”

“Yeah.”

“I would suggest in the box for now,” Michio advised.

“In the box for now,” Mayes agreed.

“I don’t want to imagine what something that magical might do if you tried to destroy it.”

“True,” Icarus realized.

“Yeah,” Pandora frowned. “It’s got to be disposed of properly.”

They put it back in the box. They felt it starting to call to them again as they unwrapped it, but they quickly pulled the lid back on. A fissure of arcane light flashed from inside as the box sealed itself.

Icarus shuddered.

“You good?” Pandora asked.

“...Can I hug you guys?”

“Please.”

“Yeah,” Mayes relented.

Icarus wrapped his arms around them both. “We’re gonna go try and find your granddad’s sword, okay?”

“Yeah.”

Icarus gave them both a little kiss on the head, and let them go.

They searched the rooms, and found Mayes’ sword hidden in Sato’s room. In Meiko’s room, they found more luggage with humanoid flesh in it. Michio and Toju followed them as they searched, looking on with mixed emotions. They found clothing in a variety of sizes, likely meant to fit whatever form the Oni took, but they didn’t find much more than that.

The Lords thanked them for what they had done, gathering the evidence of the golden plate and the nasty cutlery. Toju had looked rather green seeing the scattered bits of flesh.

Mayes bowed to Michio, offering the sword back. “Thank you for the honor of wielding this weapon.”

Michio shook his head. “It’s yours to keep.”

Mayes blinked in surprise, and squeaked out a small thanks.

“You deserve it. You’ve done so much for Vishima already, and I’m sure one day, you will do much more.”

Mayes sniffed, managing to hold back the tears as they straightened up.

“Mayes? Come here.”

Mayes put the sword back on their belt and stepped forward. Uncle Michio wrapped them in a hug, and Mayes hugged back. As he did, he whispered quietly to them. “Don’t hold on to your anger. Anger makes you weak. Channel it into something better.”

Michio pat them on the back, pulling away. “Spend a little time with the sword,” he advised, grinning.

From there, the trio retired to bed. Mayes spent a bit of time with the sword, studying it. The students didn’t have the easiest night’s sleep, but they were able to rest.

  
  


In the morning, they were roused early. The staff in the villa had helped the Lords pack. The crates of nasty business had been disposed of overnight, and there was significantly less luggage coming back for the return trip.

The Lords headed down to the Council buildings, and wrapped everything up in a short meeting in which Toju very sheepishly agreed to Michio’s terms.

From there, they packed up to leave. The Lords explained that they would search everything of Sato’s back in Vishima and correspond with them, letting them know what they found, and passing that information to the city as well.

They took the large trunk with them.

Quite boldly, Mayes approached Toju once more. “I think… maybe you owe me a small favour, after all this?”

“...What did you have in mind?”

“Makato Hasagawa’s paintings. Just make sure they get displayed somewhere nice? And, leave my grandpa alone.”

“...Consider it done.”

Toju bowed his head respectfully, and Mayes bowed back.

The students followed them down to the city docks, where they watched the staff load the Lord’s possessions back onto their ship. Michio happily gave his address to Mayes for future correspondence, hugging them all as Toju gave another bow to the trio. 

Icarus gave them Kord’s blessing for a safe trip home.

Michio was instantly pleased. “Ah, a man of religion!”

Exasperated, Toju pulled him back. “We need to go.”

From there, the Lords boarded their red sailed ship once more. The sails came up like dragon wings as it backed out of the harbour, and disappeared towards Erran’s seagates.

  
  



	20. The Book of Moirai, Episode Twenty

As the ship sailed out of the harbour, the trio had little time to dwell on the events of the past three days, quickly leaving to catch a cart back across the city to Delphos Academy and report to Sebaste before their end of year exams. The three of them paid their two silver each for the cart, their “official business” privileges now revoked, and set about on their way as the sun neared midday.

“So the box…” Icarus began.

Mayes glanced over. “Yeah?”

“Just been thinking about it a little bit.”

“Okay?” Pandora prompted. “What about it?”

“What was in it?”

“Well, I suppose it’s where the mask is kept…”

“That mask wanted to  _ stay _ on my face. I can’t imagine Sho would take it off, and she wasn’t a genasi, but she arrived as a genasi.”

“She turned back into a human,” Mayes nodded.

“So…” Pandora tilted her head. “She was already an Oni at that point?”

“Yeah,” Icarus replied.

“So what are you saying?”

“Something else was in the box?” Mayes guessed.

“Another one?”

“Yeah, maybe more masks,” Icarus shrugged. “Maybe something else entirely, I don’t know. I’m just… it’s just hypothetical, but… I don’t think that mask was in the box that we just put it in. I think something else was.”

Pandora audibly groaned. “It just gets better and better.”

“I might be wrong! I might be wrong, I’m just throwing it out there.”

“No, it’s good to remember,” Mayes sighed. “It’s just, there’s so much stuff that feels like it needs to be dealt with, but we’re so helpless to do anything about it.”

“Yeah. Just, stay on our toes.”

“Yeah.”

“And if Sato comes back, we’ll be waiting.”

“Oh yeah. He’s not escaping a second time.”

“No,” Pandora agreed.

“No way,” Icarus smiled.

Mayes gave the others an appreciative nod. “I know.”

“We’ll just deal with what we can deal with now,” Pandora decided.

“We take life as it comes at us. Hard and fast.”

“Relentlessly.”

Icarus chuckled quietly, exhausted. “I just want a break.”

They crossed the city, trying to put their minds off everything that had just happened, and they eventually rolled up outside their school.

  
  


As they approached Delphos once more, they saw a familiar figure descending the steps to the street. They recognized the handsome, slender form of Adrian the arcane gladiator, with long brown hair streaked with grey and icy blue-green eyes. He was wearing breeches with a loose white shirt slightly open at the neck and a sleeveless jacket over the top, fastened around the waist with a belt. He spotted them climbing down off their travelling cart through his round glasses, and his expression began to shine as he made a beeline for them.

“Hi!” Icarus smiled.

“Hello!”

“Hey, Adrian,” Mayes waved.

Icarus was beaming. “How are you doing?”

“I’m good, how are you?” he returned.

“Yeah, just doing our second task, so, we’re hoping to catch a break for a bit.”

“I’m sure,” he nodded, turning to look back at the blushing tiefling. “Pandora…”

Pandora had difficulty meeting his eye. “Hi…”

“Actually just the person I’ve been looking for.”

After a moment of silence, Mayes hurried Icarus along. “We should go back to our rooms to unwind.”

“Yeah,” Icarus nodded with just a bit too much enthusiasm. “I’ve got some stuff to drop off.”

“Yeah, I have business.”

Pandora stared at them desperately. “You sure?”

“Yeah, we’ll see you in a bit,” Icarus assured her, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “Send us a message when you’re ready.”

“I, uh, I, um… okay…”

Adrian looked slightly grateful as the two left. Mayes headed off to their room, and Icarus stayed behind to snoop.

Pandora fidgeted in place, wringing her hands and fixing her hair.

Adrian watched her with a smile. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just didn’t expect to see you…”

“Sorry, I’ve just been really caught up with things at the arena, and I know you’ve been busy…”

“Yeah, so busy. Sorry I haven’t been in touch or anything, there’s been so much going on.”

“That’s okay, no rush. I just wanted to know if you still wanted to get that drink?”

Pandora was blushing furiously. “Yeah, that would be nice…”

“How did your second task go, by the way? I should have asked that first.”

“Uh… it’s a really long story. Maybe we could talk about it over drinks.”

“That… sounds like it didn’t go that well.”

“Yeah, like…” Pandora gulped, and the words began tumbling out of her. “We ended up not being graded on it, and someone died, and like, it was all a big deal, and it might be a big deal on like, a national scale? But, um...”

Adrian blinked. “Oh… well… perhaps we can commiserate over drinks, get your mind off it...”

“Yeah, just getting my mind off it would be appreciated. A night off would be nice, yeah, that would be really nice.”

“Tomorrow, maybe?”

“Yeah, tomorrow would be good. We’ve got some stuff to wrap up from where we’ve just been.”

“Sure. I’m sure you need to get back to your room for relaxing, I don’t want to keep you too long.”

“Yeah,” she smiled. “Thanks for coming by though. Nice to see you.”

“Nice to see you too.”

“So… I guess… I’ll see you tomorrow night?”

“Pick you up at seven?”

“Sure.”

He grinned. “I’ll be watching the sundial.”

They agreed to meet on the steps tomorrow. Adrian gave her a kiss on the cheek, and left. Pandora watched him go, blushing.

Suddenly, a voice spoke directly behind her. “He’s cute.”

Pandora whipped around to find Icarus. “Where did you come from?!”

“Over there,” the triton chuckled, pointing some distance away.

“You’re the worst. Don’t even look at me!”

Pandora hurried inside ahead of him. As she stepped inside, she noticed one of the first year students talking to the lobby attendant. There was a huge bouquet of flowers on the lobby desk, and the attendant pointed over to Pandora. The first year carried them over, offering them to her.

She took them, surprised.“Uh, hi? What’s this?”

“From a Mr. Adrian?”

Pandora blanched. “Wow… that’s… a big bunch of flowers…”

“She says thank you,” Icarus translated, taking the bouquet for her.

“Thanks!”

The student darted off quickly, and Pandora was left with the flowers. It was a huge, colorful bouquet, filled with all kinds of exotic flowers. Icarus carefully handed it over to her.

“Wow… It smells really good. I’ve never had flowers before.”

“Really?”

“Not like, from a  _ guy…” _

“Well, that’s exciting,” Icarus grinned. “He seems nice.”

“Yeah, he seems like a nice guy…”

“You’re blushing.”

“No I’m not! Never!”

“I can tell when you blush, because your freckles get brighter.”

She held the bouquet higher. “Don’t look at me! I am unknowable!”

“You wish you were unknowable,” Icarus laughed.

“Yeah, I really do. I wish people wouldn’t even look at me.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be so beautiful then,” he teased.

“Stop! I’m going to go put this in my room!”

“Okay, catch you later.”

The three of them had the rest of the afternoon to themselves. There was studying to be done, and though they didn’t have any finals scheduled for tomorrow, the exams would begin the day after that. They had to report to Sebaste at some point as well to discuss their latest contract.

The three of them headed back to their rooms separately, dropping things off and freshening up.

  
  


In their room, Mayes took a quiet moment to check in with Daichi.

Not quite sure what they were doing, Mayes placed a hand on their chest, and spoke. “Hey… Daichi… That was probably not how you wanted things to go, but…”

His voice echoed back in Mayes’ head. “Not exactly.”

“But… there’s answers there. And he’s gonna come back, I know it.”

“I know it too.”

“We’ll get him next time.”

“I’m trying to piece it together,” Daichi rasped. “Sato was the monster. He was sending people to the woods?”

“I think… I remember things a bit better now, and… it makes sense to me that if Toju knew about it, and he had to send someone Sato’s way, might as well send people who don’t agree with him.”

“Coward.”

“I was causing a bit of a minor political stir before everything happened to me,” Mayes admitted. “So, that would track. But yeah, I think he’s a coward.”

“You were doing the right thing.”

“Thank you.”

“Our country deserves better.”

“It does.”

“...I can’t let go yet,” Daichi declared. “Not until he’s dead.”

“That’s fair. That’s very fair.”

“We make a good team.”

“We do. But, just… calm down a bit, if you can, okay? I can do this.”

“Calm down yourself,” he replied. “You get so angry.”

“That’s because I can feel how angry  _ you _ are.” Mayes sighed, sitting down on their bed. “Looks like we’ve both got some personal growth to do.”

“I think my time for growth has kind of passed.”

“Very funny. Well, I should get back to… everything… but, thank you.”

Daichi didn’t reply, but Mayes felt a new sense of calm and balance in the air.

  
  


Pandora hurried to her room, realizing she hadn’t yet replied to her sister’s letter. She got out some parchment, telling her sister how happy she was for her, and how she had run into Roys recently. She informed her that she was so excited to attend the engagement party, and that she would definitely be bringing a few friends.

  
  


In his own room, Icarus looked over the documents he had stolen from Kondou. He flipped through a few bills of sale, but there were no names visible, the signatures all cleverly disguised with initials or other methods to avoid a paper trail. They seemed to detail sales of rare creature parts, including eggs, spines, and dragon throat glands, as the smugglers passed live animals and parts alike back and forth underground.

He moved to the fight schedules. These pages were less secretive, with years of schedules stretching back. The fights were less frequent than the daily battles at the Maw, with only about one match per month.

Glancing through, he found a name he recognized matched up against a Night Bear about five years ago.

Thalasse.

  
  


Later in the day, the trio regrouped, heading down to Sebaste’s office. As they went to knock, they overheard voices inside. Mayes nudged the others out of the way to listen.

“No, no. I assure you, they’re quite alright.”

“As long as you’re confident of it, Sebaste.”

“Yes, no reason to worry. Speaking of worrying, you’re not one of their professors this year, are you? Why are you concerning yourself with them?”

“Just doing my due diligence. Wouldn’t want to see anyone else hurt.”

“No, quite right, quite right. Well, much to be getting on with…”

The conversation fell quiet, with footsteps towards the door. Mayes retracted as the door opened, and Professor Zyki stepped out.

“Hi!” Icarus grinned. “Sorry.”

He gave the three of them a half smile and a sidelong glance, letting them step aside before passing without a word.

From inside the office, Sebaste glanced up, wringing his hands a bit as he sat behind the desk. “Ah! You three, come on in. You’re back!”

“Everything okay?” Icarus wondered.

“Everything’s fine, fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. I’ve already heard word this morning from the Lords. I hear things didn’t go entirely as planned.”

“No.”

“It was a bit more complicated than first thought,” Pandora admitted.

Mayes raised a brow. “That’s putting it lightly.”

“But, we handled it,” Icarus concluded.

“So I hear,” Sebaste nodded. “Well, I’ve had a short run down of the situation, and in lieu of things going significantly wrong, and the great job that the three of you have done to protect the Lords… they were offering 130 gold pieces per student for the contract, but they’ve increased the pay to 500 each.”

Pandora gasped. “What?”

“Yes, very kind of them.”

“Very generous!”

“Lord Michio said that, considering how wonderfully you did, everything you did for them, it was only right.”

“Wow. That’s a lot of money…”

“He’s so nice,” Mayes sighed.

“Yeah, he’s the best.”

“I believe this largely clears your debts,” Sebaste continued. “And what’s left over, as per usual, you can take for yourselves. Let me just get out my logbook...”

He pulled out a huge accounting ledger, flicking it open. Passing through the pages, he looked down, confused, before looking back up at Icarus.

Icarus was avoiding eye contact.

Sebaste looked at the page again. “Mr. Pelayo…”

“Hello.”

“I see that you have accrued… a significant debt.”

“Yep.”

“...Okay, well…”

“I can pay it off, I’ve got time.”

“Your total before coming into this recent contract is… 1,705.”

Pandora’s jaw dropped. “What?”

Icarus nodded. “Yep.”

“When? What are you doing?”

“Well, obviously, during final exams, we do leave spending up to student discrecion,” Sebaste continued, “I just hope that you’re aware that, as this is likely your final year at Delphos, and this is the final month of the year, you will need to be paying that off by the end of the month.”

Icarus furrowed his brow, looking to the others in confusion. “I thought we could still take contracts after we finished?”

“Not in your final year. If you do graduate, then by the end of this month, unfortunately, the contracts will not be on offer to you anymore because you will no longer be students here.”

Pandora looked to Icarus in shock. “What are you going to do?”

“It’s fine,” Icarus assured her. “I’ll figure it out, don’t worry.”

“You’ve got a couple of weeks,” Sebaste repeated. “Well, if that’s clear, then let’s just mark off what debt is now covered. So, Mr. Pelayo, taking 500 off, that leaves your debt at 1,205.”

“Yep.”

“Mayes, you had 470, so you’ll receive 30 gold from this contract.”

“Thank you,” Mayes replied.

Unlocking a safe, Sebaste handed over the gold. “Miss Pandora,” he continued. “As you had kept your debt quite low, this will be going towards paying your 222 gold’s worth of debt. And so, I will be counting out 278 for you.”

Pandora giulped. “What? Uh, um…!”

Sebaste turned around, hauling out pouches of gold.

“You can have a good date,” Icarus grinned.

Pandora sputtered. “Uh, I…! I’ve never had this much money, like, ever! Collectively, even!”

“Now that you’ve got this money, you can give him flowers…”

“You can treat yourself,” Mayes added.

Sebaste pushed a few bags forward. “Do you want it all in gold pieces, or do you want some platinum?”

Pandora’s eyes went wide. “I’ve never even  _ seen _ a platinum! Uh… yeah, I guess? Sorry, how much again?”

“278.”

“Um… Yeah, I guess I want that in platinum? Just so I’m not… weighed down?”

“Sure,” he smiled. He spun back in the chair, counting out 20 pieces of platinum and 78 pieces of gold.

“Wow, thanks! I’ll have to write to Uncle Michio.”

“We’re  _ all _ writing to Uncle Michio,” Mayes declared. “We’re writing a letter together.”

“Yeah…”

“And I’m gonna put flowers in it.”

“Thank you very much, Sebaste.”

“Thank you,” Sebaste returned with a smile. “Since you’ve done such a great service for the city. You’ve earned it.”

“I will come back and look at contracts at some point in the next day or two,” Icarus assured him.

“Sounds good to me.”

He let them go, and the trio stepped back into the hall.

“So, we’ve got to revise for the rest of the day?” Mayes guessed. They all had an exam coming up early in the morning for  _ The Psychology of Body Language _ the day after tomorrow.

“Do we want to go to the library?” Pandora offered. “Or would you prefer to revise on your own?”

“I don’t mind the library,” Icarus replied.

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “Let’s just do some revision, and then we can have the evening to ourselves.”

“Yeah,” Pandora nodded. “It will be nice to have some time to unwind.”

They headed to the library, and revised for the rest of the afternoon. They grabbed dinner together after a few hours, and it felt rather comforting to be back at school and back in their uniforms, with nothing else to worry about.

That night, they headed to bed, and fell into sleep. Several hours into the night, they were dragged into a dream.

  
  


They found themselves, once again, alone in a dark tunnel. It was easily recognizable now by the ways the shadows seemed to stretch into nothing, and the sound of dripping water overhead. Ahead of them, a thin line of red light stretched out, leading further into the dark. Looking down, they realized the line connected to the center of their chests.

Glancing behind themselves, they felt a tremor, and suddenly the tunnel began to collapse behind them. They ran, the red light tugging at their chest like a puppet string, encouraging them to move faster.

A few rocks hit Icarus’s back and shoulders as they collapsed down, but the three of them managed to pelt down the tunnel, with huge chunks of stone collapsing all around them, littering the ground behind them until the tunnel was completely blocked when they looked back over their shoulder. Running as fast as their bodies could carry them, the space shook violently around them until they exploded out of the tunnel into the ruins of a temple under the night sky.

Looking up, they could see hundreds of stars, but no moon. Partly collapsed grey stone walls crawling with moss and vines surrounded them. Hearing the sound of water, they looked down to realize the ground was entirely flooded. They were stepping through three or four inches of water, looking for each other to no avail in the dark.

  
  


Mayes moved forwards slowly at the sound of more footsteps. Peering around a stone wall, they found Icarus.

“Icarus!”

The triton turned. “Hey!”

“Hey.”

Icarus pointed to the line of red light on his chest.

“Yeah,” Mayes frowned.

“Weird!”

“Yeah.”

“So Pandora and Damen are probably here?”

“Probably. We should… look for them?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess, be quiet about it.”

“Okay,” Icarus nodded. Then, correcting himself, he whispered.  _ “Okay.” _

The red light faded from both of their chests, as if it had been leading them to each other.

They set about looking for the others in the dark. Realizing they had their supplies with them, they quickly lit their water-resistant torch, throwing the pair into a warm light. Bugs crawled away into cracks in the walls at the light, which illuminated an intricately tiled floor under the water beneath them. The tile depicted a pattern of waves, leading towards something bigger ahead of them.

  
  


Pandora, still wandering around the sprawling expanse of ruined stone walls and water, waved a hand to cast a protective spell over herself. Suddenly, she heard more footsteps. Peering through a gap in the ruined walls of a stone archway, she noticed something large slither past.

Hoping for the best, she sent out a message.  _ “Icarus, Mayes… are you here?” _

Neither of them heard her message, but she did hear a voice reply.  _ “...Pandora?” _

_ “Damen! Where are you?” _

_ “Where are  _ you? _ …I’m standing in a puddle.” _

_ “Where I am, there’s a big snake here as well!” _

_ “Okay, just stay where you are. I’m going to see if I can find you, okay?” _

_ “Okay!” _

It was quiet for a while, but then she heard the splashing footsteps of Damen moving closer. Two glowing red eyes came towards her out of the darkness, but as they approached, she realized they were the eyes of Damen’s lion helmet.

Damen grinned, and pulled her into a hug. “Hi! Where are the others?”

“I don’t know, I haven't found them yet.”

“Okay. That’s fine, we’ll find them. Hold my hand.”

“I will.”

Damen took her by the hand, keeping her close. “Keep an eye out for whatever you saw, okay?”

“Okay. Can you see in the dark?”

“Yeah?”

“Okay, cool. It’s so nice to have someone else who can see in the dark.”

Damen chuckled. “Can they not see in the dark?”

“No!”

“Wow.”

“I have to do everything around here…”

  
  


Elsewhere, Mayes and Icarus continued their search, following the patterns in the tiles. As they moved, Icarus noticed a slight shimmer catch on a patch of scales. Mayes was looking at the floor, following the wave pattern to where the tiles turned into a depiction of the horizon with a low dipping sun. Beyond that, they found the shape of a hill, with dozens and dozens of soldiers in Errani style uniforms marching up the incline.

As they described the patterns to Icarus, the triton leaned over to whisper. “I don’t want to alarm you, but there’s a snake in the temple.”

“...Okay. I mean, last time we did this we had to fight a big snake monster anyway, so…”

“Yeah but, it’s big!”

“Yeah, it was big last time, Icarus.”

“Yeah, it’s just big!”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to get across, but thanks for the heads up.”

Icarus rolled his eyes. “You’re welcome.”

“Let’s try and find the others.”

  
  


The pairs wandered through the temple. Icarus caught another glimpse of something slithering past another gap in the broken walls of the ruins. Moving a bit closer to peer out, he saw that they were up on a hill, the temple at the top. A large bay spread underneath them, with huge rolling fields in the other direction. It had a semblance of the Errani countryside, but in the dream, he couldn’t pinpoint their exact location.

“We’re pretty high up here,” Icarus gestured.

Mayes stepped forward to look. “Yeah, that’s weird.”

As they looked out, they realized they could hear something moving below them, quite a long distance away. Something was moving like a blanket across the fields. Staring down in the dark, the area suddenly illuminated for them.

The Errani Legions marched across the field.

“That’s an army,” Icarus realized. “That’s the Legions.”

Mayes frowned in concern. “Where are they going?”

“I don’t know. But this is not… a piece of history.”

“This is… the future?”

“Potentially  _ a _ future…”

As they discussed, their conversation was interrupted by the blast of a battle horn down below.

“Something we better try and stop?” Icarus guessed.

“Maybe…”

  
  


Pandora and Damen continued deeper into the temple, with glimpses of the same large, serpentine body sliding past opening near them.

She messaged the others again.  _ “Where are you guys?” _

_ “Pandora!” _ Mayes’ voice returned.  _ “Top of a hill.” _

_ “Top of a hill?” _

_ “We’re in a temple, which has got water in it,”  _ Icarus clarified.  _ “On top of a hill.” _

_ “Well, I’m in a temple as well, but how are you out on a hill?” _

_ “No, the temple is on top of a hill. Be careful, there’s some kind of snake creature in here.” _

_ “Yeah, I know, I’ve seen it.”  _ She turned back to Damen. “They’re on a hill, somewhere.”

“Okay, hang on…” Damen headed over to a window, sticking his head through. “We’re on a hill!”

Pandora followed, looking out across the battlefield.

“I don’t like this,” Damen frowned.

“No… what the hell?”

Damen touched the necklace around his neck.  _ “Hey Tadpole. Send up a fuckin’ magic flare, or something.” _

Icarus felt his own necklace grow warm as he heard Damen’s voice.  _ “Alright, fine…” _

Mayes glanced over to him. “You good?”

He gestured to the necklace. “Yeah, don’t worry about it…”

In the distance, Pandora and Damen suddenly noticed a flare of arcane light from a few blocks away.

“Okay,” Pandora nodded. “Let’s try forward.”

They navigated through reeds and brush, stepping through doorways and passing the serpentine creature a few times more. In the glow of Icarus’s light, they could see blue and red stripes down its huge, scaled body.

Before long, the pair had found their way to the others. Icarus was still glowing.

“Okay, you can turn it off now,” Pandora whispered.

Icarus snapped, and the glow stopped.

“Good to see you,” Damen greeted.

“Yeah, you too,” Icarus replied.

Pandora took another glance at their surroundings. “This is weird.”

“There is an army out there- well, the  _ Erran _ army…”

“It’s  _ the _ army.”

“I don’t like that,” Damen repeated.

“Where’s it going?”

“I don’t know,” Icarus replied. “I was just saying to Mayes that that’s the modern uniform, this isn't a snippet of history. This is maybe something we need to stop.”

“Maybe…”

“Maybe,” Damen shrugged. “Haven’t heard anything about any wars coming…”

“No, but it’s  _ a _ future,” Icarus reminded him.

“But how far in the future?” Pandora worried.

Damen shook his head again.”I don't like it.”

“Also, that snake in there? It might be a naga.”

“Oh, I don’t like that.”

“No, I hate it,” Icarus agreed.

“I don’t know what that is, but I don’t like it.”

“It’s similar to what Leonida found in the labyrinth,” Pandora recalled.

“The spirit naga?” Mayes guessed.

“Yeah, kind of similar…”

“Well, look,” Damen sighed. “There’s obviously more to find here, otherwise we’d be waking up, so…”

“I guess. Well I mean, we’re not dead, so maybe that’s why.”

“It’s a start,” Mayes agreed. “I guess we just gotta explore.”

“Great,” Damen replied. “Could just jump off the side of the hill…”

No,” Icarus and Pandora chorused.

Mayes shrugged. “It’s a dream.”

“It’s a dream,” Damen echoed.

“Yeah but, if you die in the dream then you wake up, right?” Icarus countered. 

“Yeah?”

“We’ve got to find out stuff that’s going on first.”

Damen rolled his eyes. “Okay…”

Mayes gave Damen a look that said,  _ I would have jumped off the hill with you. _

Damen chuckled.

“Let’s go and explore this temple a bit,” Pandora continued, “But try not to disturb the snake.”

They kept moving for a while, but they didn’t find anything else of note inside the temple.

They made their way to the central room, a significantly bigger space, with a huge, collapsed stone man fallen across the center. Reminiscent of the Colossus of Erran, the statue’s head was smashed off, sinking into the water. One foot was still fixed to the floor, snapped off at the ankle while the other foot had fallen with the rest of the body.

At one end of the room was a stone plinth, with a book sitting on top of it. They made their way to the plinth, and realized the book was also made of stone, carved open. There was no writing, but on one page, a sharp blade was engraved. On the other, a spool of thread.

“Fates,” Mayes declared.

Icarus waded over to the head of the statue, which was sitting in about a foot of water. “This thing is huge.”

“Seems like an ill omen,” Mayes replied.

“It does, doesn’t it,” Pandora worried. “Like Erran will fall.”

“Not on my watch it won’t,” Damen declared.

Mayes smiled. “I believe that.”

“Armies marching at sunrise,” Icarus mumbled. “From the… waves?”

“Across the ocean?” Mayes guessed. “I don’t know.”

After a few minutes of silence, Damen turned around in exasperation. “Come on!” he shouted. “Give us something!”

“So much for stealth,” Icarus muttered.

As he spoke, the room rumbled slightly. Through windows and gaps in the stone, the serpentine body slithered around the outside of the room.

Icarus groaned. “Dames, why?”

“That’s more like it,” he grinned.

Mayes looked down at their new sword. Though there was nothing on the scabbard itself, as they unsheathed it, all of the jade rabbits down the blade began to glow. Green light emanated from the blade as the rabbits detached, bouncing around them like spirits.

Icarus gasped with delight at the sight. “Aw, Uncle!”

“We’re in danger,” Mayes declared.

“Yeah, but it’s cute danger!”

“It’s cute, but, this means  _ bad.” _

Damen rolled his shoulders, free of his injuries in his dream form. “Well, let’s get ready!”

Bursting through one of the holes in the wall came a humanlike face attached to the body of a serpent, with blue and red stripes all the way down its body. It barrelled towards them from the other side of the enormous statue. Icarus summoned his spiritual weapon, the blade slicing upwards to carve a diagonal wound across the creature’s chest.

Following Icarus, Pandora began rounding the arm of the statue, sending a spell forwards. As she drew the arcane sigils in the air, blindness struck the creature, causing it to reel back for a moment.

Damen moved towards the head of the statue, sending out a wave of assistive magic to the students as they charged. Mayes dashed past, brandishing their new sword, but the spirit reared back before they could strike.

The creature spoke in a guttural, Abyssal language, and a gigantic bolt of lightning shot from it, scorching a path across the room that burned across Damen and Mayes.

Icarus’s nereids returned, engulfing the creature as his spiritual weapon slashed in again. Pandora ran towards it, sending out a fire spell as Damen summoned his own spiritual weapon. The giant blood-dripping battle axe came flying over Pandora’s head, driving into the creature.

Mayes swung in with Michio’s sword, carving an impressive wound across its side before stabbing in with their grandfather’s blade.

Hearing Icarus through the nereids, the creature turned, sending a spell of frost that struck into the triton. As the spell slammed him back, the nereids flashed out of existence. The creature blinked its eyes, the blindness lifting from it as it stared down at Icarus.

Icarus smiled up at it. “Hello.”

An eruption of thunderous energy shot from the triton, sending the creature reeling back as bits of the walls crumbled into rock. The creature was fuming, glaring down at Icarus as his spiritual weapon carved in again.

From the other side, Pandora shot out another firebolt before rushing in to stab the creature with her seablade. Damianos charged up behind her, swinging his shortsword into the creature as the giant battle axe slashed forwards. Soon after, Mayes sliced in with their double blades.

The creature was surrounded on all sides, a ghostly shimmer passing through it. Turning its head to look at them all, it blinked out of existence, reappearing at the other end of the room.

Icarus turned towards it, raising his holy weapon. A ray of electricity shot out, piercing the center of the creature’s chest. It lit up from the inside, electricity jittering around inside its body, smoke rising as it cooked from the inside out. Then, it collapsed to the ground, unmoving.

Pandora leaned back, relieved. “Well done, Icarus.”

“Well done, all of us,” he returned.

“What does that mean though? We’ve never beat a creature in one of these dreams before.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t impossible,” Mayes replied.

Icarus started walking back towards it. “Let’s go check it out.”

They moved to inspect the body. The ghastly human-like face attached to the head had a forked tongue sticking out from its lips, and long, red and blue triangular stripes down its body.

“You said it was a spirit naga, right?” Mayes asked.

Pandora gave a nod.

“What was the story with the labyrinth? The spirit naga was trying to ascend to…”

“Godhood?” Icarus guessed.

“Yeah, some kind of higher power. And if the Fates know that we know that, maybe that’s the implication?”

Damen frowned. “A big snake is trying to become God?”

“That someone who we know, who is a snake, is trying to become a God.”

“...Who is a snake?”

“You know, someone who is shifty, and… you know, snake in the grass, that kind of expression?”

Damen gave them a blank look.

“…Do you not know metaphors, Damen?”

“Helena told us to think of everything that happens in these dreams kind of metaphorically,” Icarus clarified.

“Oh, okay,” Damen nodded. “Well… it’s a stupid snake.”

He stabbed his sword into its head.

Pandora headed back to the book on the plinth, giving it another look, but nothing had changed.

Mayes headed out into the hall, looking back to where the naga had first pounced. “There’s more ruins through the way it burst through.”

“Yeah, let’s dig a little deeper,” Icarus agreed.

Damen kicked at the naga. “So stupid…”

“How do we leave this dream?” Pandora wondered.

“I guess we have to wait until the grand finale happens,” Mayes guessed.

“You think there’s more?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t like it,” Damen declared. “I don’t want to be here any more.”

“Don’t think any of us want to be here,” Icarus replied. “But hey, look at you, on your feet.”

“Well yeah, that feels kind of good… Okay, well, let’s just keep exploring.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Pandora agreed.

They continued wandering around. Time didn’t seem to pass here normally, but it felt like they had been walking for ages. It was still dark, with no sun rising, no change in the weather, and no clouds ahead. The temple seemed endless.

Damen groaned in frustration. “I just want to get out of here.”

Mayes rubbed their chin in thought. “Do you think if, as a unit, we choose to wake up… we might wake up?”

“I guess we can try,” Pandora shrugged.

“One, two, three, try!”

“Wake up!”

“Wake up!” Icarus shouted.

Damen looked between them. “...Wake up?”

Mayes opened their eyes, but nothing had changed. “Wake up…? …No. It was worth a shot.”

Icarus turned to Pandora. “Slap me.”

She did, and it hurt.

“Ah! ...Okay, that didn’t work.”

Mayes frowned, looking suspiciously around the temple walls. “You don’t think we have to…”

“Die to wake up?” Pandora finished.

Icarus let out a sigh. “I’m not happy with that.”

“You guys didn’t have to die last time,” Damen pointed out.

“But you did,” Mayes returned.

Damen gave the three of them a look.

“No,” they chorused, sensing what was coming.

“It’s a dream!”

Icarus shook his head. “So?”

“...So?”

There was a bit of silence as the trio considered. None of them looked too keen on the suggestion.

Damen shrugged. “Can’t stop me.”

In a moment, he pulled out his sword and plunged it into his chest.

The trio started forward with cries of shock, but they were too late. The blade split his chest open, and as the blood began pouring out, they woke up.

Pandora blinked awake in her bed. “God damn it!”

Mayes, in their own bed, felt much the same. “Asshole!”

They sat in their beds, the very first rays of early morning light outside their window.

As Icarus sat in silence, he felt the increasingly familiar sensation of magic from the necklace.

_ “Hey Tadpole. Sorry about that. Crazy dreams, right? We should see about doing something about this. Hope you’re good.” _

_ “Better if you didn’t, you know, kill yourself in front of us again,” _ Icarus returned.  _ “Yeah, we should look into it. Glad you’re okay.” _

Icarus laid back down, trying to doze off. The creature’s ghastly face remained an image in his mind, as did the Legions crawling up the hills outside Erran. The sun started to creep up, and before he knew it, it was bright outside the window.

  
  


As they started getting up, before they could do much else, they were all interrupted by the loud sound of a trumpet outside the school.

They moved to the windows of their dormitories, peering out into the street. A small, feminine, finely clothed elven man with pale skin and golden hair was holding a trumpet in one hand and a scroll in the other.

Annoyed, Icarus booed from his window.

The herald stood outside the front of the school. There was a chorus of footsteps as other students made for their windows to see what was going on.

The herald waved a hand, casting a spell to make his voice louder. “To the three students of Delphos Academy responsible for saving the life of gladiator Damianos Thalasse at the Maw Coliseum: Pandora Di Rossi, Icarus Pelayo, and Meiro Hasagawa. You are requested at the offices of Lord Roman Pešek at your earliest convenience.”

The herald played another trumpet riff before turning around to leave.

Slight laughter could be heard from the other dormitory rooms. Pandora pulled her blanket back over her head in embarrassment.

Lord Pešek was known for famously speaking out against the Imperata, calling her a tired old figurehead who shouldn’t have any power over the people. A wealthy landowner from a long lived noble line, he was a religious figure in Erran, and attached to the central temple of Maglubiyet, which was renowned for being a bastion of light in the area. Pešek was well known for his philanthropic work in the city, giving financial aid to government projects he deemed fit.

Mayes started heading out. They had recently begun offering small prayers to Pelor in the mornings to combat the stress of recent events, and whenever they did, they felt a tingle of happiness inside from Daichi.

The trio congregated in the quad.

“Everything is a lot right now,” Pandora declared.

“That was embarrassing,” Icarus agreed.

“Yeah. Was that you booing?”

“...Yeah.”

As they stood together, a few other students passed by, glancing at them and whispering to each other as they went about their days.

“I guess we should go and see, get it out of the way,” Mayes shrugged.

Pandora covered her face as another group of students passed. “I just want to be unknowable!”

“Pandora, you’re orange.”

“Thanks, I had no idea!”

“Just saying, you stand out, as like, the only tiefling in this school!”

“Yeah, I don’t need more reasons to stand out!”

“I guess we should go see him. But maybe we should talk about last night first?”

“Yeah. I kind of wish Damen hadn’t done that,” she frowned.

“Yeah.”

“Moreso for… the disproving something before proving something, if that makes sense.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve already told him off this morning,” Icarus replied. “We should, I guess, go to the library?”

“I suppose.”

“Books,” Mayes nodded.

“I’ve just got in the back of my mind that we have an exam tomorrow. Everything is so much right now… Okay, alright, let’s go try and figure some of this out.”

“Okay, so, what do we know?” Icarus began. “We saw the tilework, waves leading up to a hilltop that had the sun rising over it, and that’s where there were images of soldiers. And then we looked out the windows…”

“And saw those soldiers.”

“It was the Legions.”

“Did you see anything else on the floor?” Pandora asked.

“No.”

“Like, something coming from the ocean? Because I didn’t see them facing off against anyone.”

“No, me neither.”

“Or they’re going out to _ see  _ somewhere else,” Mayes suggested. “And there was also the Colossus, but, collapsed.”

“Like Erran has fallen,” Pandora nodded. “Or will fall. Ominous. And there was no iconography to any particular god or anything?”

“It felt like the whole place was patched together,” Icarus replied. “Like none of it was real.”

“Yeah. And then the great big snake thing…”

They reached the library, stepping into the sprawling chamber of floor to ceiling bookshelves across two floors, spiral staircases in between. Instead of the usual old satyr lady working at the desk, they saw two students talking at the front.

Pandora recognized Dominic Leed as a half elf first year from Medeis working behind the counter. He was tall, nearly 6’2” with a lanky beard, white blonde hair hanging down to his shoulders, and extremely pale skin with strangely misty white eyes. He looked fairly grouchy as he spoke with a Virtus student, Aedon Zanili.

A second year student, Aedon was on the skinnier side, but she had proven herself to be pretty strong in some of Delphos’s more physical classes. Only five feet tall, she had white wavy hair down to her shoulders and grey eyes. Though she was cute and sweet, she fought with a battle axe nearly as big as herself. Upbeat, friendly, and bubbly, she didn’t seem to be bothered by the demeanor of the boy behind the counter.

As they passed, they overheard her asking for a book on interpreting signals from the Gods.

“Well, I have a first year student that I’m trying to mentor,” she frantically explained. “And I’m trying to teach him something about this, and I can’t find the book.”

Dominic sighed. “Let me look through and see what I can find.”

He flicked through the library register. Aedon noticed the others pass by, and lit up at the sight of Icarus, waving.

Icarus grinned. “Hey.”

“Did you hear the harold?”

The trio instantly cringed.

“I think all of Erran heard that herald,” Pandora grumbled.

“That was exciting!” Aedon laughed. “What was that?”

“He pretty much put it across,” Icarus shrugged. “We helped save one of the gladiators, so…”

“That’s so cool! You’ve always been the coolest person.”

“What?”

“Yeah!”

“Isn’t he just?” Mayes grinned.

“He’s really cool,” Pandora agreed.

Aedon smiled. “He is.”

“Like, the coolest guy I know, anyway.”

Icarus straightened, glancing around at them all with surprise. “Thanks.”

Aedon turned back to the desk. “Dominic, don’t you think he’s cool?”

Dominic turned to regard Icarus. After a pause, he shrugged. “I guess.”

“I think he’s super cool. And you two! You’re all so smart, top of your class…” She held out a hand. “I’m Aedon.”

Pandora took it. “Pandora, nice to meet you.”

“Mayes,” Mayes followed, shaking as well.

Icarus stepped up to Dominic. “While you’ve got the book out, we’re actually looking for something similar. Symbols from dreams, rather than Gods. They might be in the same section?”

Dominic sneered a bit, head down in the book. He seemed bothered to have to work. “Okay, I can look.”

“Thanks for your  _ help,” _ Pandora replied.

Hearing the slight sass in her voice, Dominic mimicked her tone. “You’re  _ welcome.” _

He flicked through for a while.

“Maybe turn to page 270?” Icarus suggested.

He sighed again, and kept searching. “It’s over in section… 8-C.”

“Great, thanks.”

“And mine?” Aedon prompted.

Dominic stared at her. “8-C.”

“Yeah, they’d be close together, I imagine,” Pandora replied.

“Yeah.”

Dominic stared at them until they left, visibly bothered by how peppy Aedon was. He let out a sigh of relief as she passed. As the trio moved past, they noticed he had a staff with a crow footed top with him, a red gem placed in the center.

Aedon trotted beside the trio as they headed into the library. “He was nice,” she grinned.

Icarus gave her a polite smile. “Yeah, definitely…”

“So peppy,” Pandora muttered.

“So you saved a gladiator?” she continued.

“Yeah, just sort of… had to,” shrugged Mayes.

“Couldn’t really sit around and not do anything,” Pandora explained. “Given the circumstances…”

Icarus stepped up beside her, excitement clear on his face. “So there were two chimera…”

“Should we really be spreading this?”

“It’s not spreading! How many people were watching at the time? It’s hardly a secret!”

“Okay…”

“So there were two chimera, and we entered the arena to help out, because Damen was getting a little bit, you know, beaten up- ”

Aedon sighed dreamily as she listened. “Oh, Damen…”

“Right?”

“Mhm!”

“You a fan as well?” Pandora guessed.

“Yeah, big fan. I really want to be a gladiator one day.”

“Are you the one that fights with a battle axe?”

_ “Huge _ battle axe,” Icarus whispered.

Aedon grinned. “Yeah!”

“I bet you could one day, then,” Pandora replied.

“You think?”

“Yeah. And they do tryouts every now and then, right?”

“Yeah, they’re going to do some at the Solstice Festival, after the school year ends, and I really want to try it out.”

“Wow, seems like you know more than we do.”

“Are you going to be there?”

Icarus grinned. “Yeah, why not?”

“Nice.”

“I’m sure as long as you apply yourself and keep training, it’s worth a shot,” Mayes approved.

“I reckon you can do it,” Icarus agreed. “I’ve seen you fight.”

She looked very pleased. “Thank you.”

She skipped ahead slightly, reaching area 8-C a few moments before the trio caught up. Scanning the shelves, it didn’t take long for them to find what they needed.

Pandora found  _ The Dream Interpretation Dictionary, _ while Icarus pulled out  _ The Divinity Code: A Guide To Determining Divine Symbols, _ and Mayes took out  _ Dream Language 101. _ Aedon stacked up her own books, carrying them over to another table.

The trio sat down, rifling through their books for about half an hour. They found a few interesting interpretations, but none of the books had quite what they were looking for.

According to one book, a red thread was an indication of true love, or a love that would last a lifetime.

Seeing this, Mayes gasped, reaching for Icarus’s hand with a grin. “Oh Icarus, I never knew you felt this way about me.”

“Me neither,” Icarus laughed.

Pandora looked up from her own book. “Wait, what?”

“Apparently, we’re all in love.”

“Deeply so,” Mayes declared.

Pandora gave them both a look, and then went back to her own book. “Sure.”

They read on. Another book claimed that dreaming of a monster could represent an aspect of one’s personality that was terrible towards others, or totally unfair. It could also be representative of a projection of a personal situation that was unsympathetic to one’s wishes.

Icarus looked at the book suspiciously. “I don’t think these are…”

“This isn’t really what we’re going for, is it?” Mayes agreed.

They kept at it. The third book suggested that a snake symbol meant something significant could be happening in one’s unconscious, either dangerous or healing. The snake symbolized both negative and positive, such as toxic thoughts, transformation, or rebirth.

Visiting a temple in a dream apparently meant that the dreamer was searching for heavenly guidance. It was also possible that a person might be worshipping ideas or entities that were considered negative by the public. According to the books, any temple in a dream meant the dreamer could be searching for guidance from a higher force.

Icarus frowned at the pages. “This is so… bad.”

“I think we’re better off talking to Helena about this kind of stuff,” Mayes agreed.

“She said to contact her if this kind of thing happened again anyway,” Pandora recalled.

Icarus flipped back to the first book. “I can’t believe we’re all in love.”

“I guess I have to break up with Sasu,” Mayes teased.

“Aw, I’m sorry.”

“Sucks.”

“She'll understand,” Icarus grinned. “Just tell her you saw the red thread in a dream.”

“Saw the red thread in the dream. I have three true loves.”

Pandora rolled her eyes. “Okay, so what are we doing now? Going to see this… Pešek?”

“Yeah, see what he wants.”

“He’s probably going to send his trumpet man after us again,” Icarus warned.

“I don’t want to get chased by a trumpet!” Mayes protested. “I’ve had that dream.”

“Ooh, what does that mean?” Icarus grinned, flipping through the book again before landing on the right page. “Dreaming about a trumpet could be interpreted differently in different scenarios, but in general, when you see some kind of trumpet in a dream, it foretells you have some kind of warning. To see yourself blowing a trumpet is a sign of good news coming to your life. It foretells that you will meet a happy person.”

Mayes grinned. “It’s a warning.”

“It’s a warning,” Icarus declared with mock seriousness. “Mayes?”

“Yes?”

“You’re warned.”

  
  


They left the school, travelling across the city to a higher end path, where they found themselves at the offices of Lord Pešek. As a wealthy landowner, the offices were similar to the offices of the Council, though the building was a bit smaller, and attached to the side of a larger villa which they assumed to be his home with gardens beyond that.

A member of staff showed them in the front, and asked them to wait in the lobby area, which was nicely, if not a bit extravagantly, decorated. Various beautiful weaponry was mounted on the wall, with a small shrine at one end with a double bladed battle axe hanging over it. It looked quite a bit like Damen’s spiritual weapon.

They were left alone for a few minutes to wait. Pandora looked around for the trumpeter. Peering down the hallways, she caught the back of a blonde head walking past, but she couldn’t be sure.

Icarus investigated the battle axe. It was beautifully made, sharp and made properly for battle, but there was no evidence of use on it.

“Hey,” Mayes tapped Icarus. “Do you still have necklace charges for the day?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Do you want to maybe tell Damen to meet us at Helena’s in a little while?”

“Yeah, how long do you think?”

“I don’t know how long this is going to take… Maybe afterwards?”

“Yeah, I can do it afterwards. We can say we’re on our way there.”

“Yeah. I don’t know, it just feels like he should be there.”

Icarus nodded. “I’m mad at him, anyway.”

“Yeah, fair.”

They looked back to the axe. The shrine underneath it was dedicated to Maglubiyet.

“Don’t the Errani Legions worship Maglubiyet?” Pandora wondered.

“Yeah,” Icarus replied. “They do.”

“Hm… Lots of dots being connected today.”

After a few minutes of sitting on a bench waiting, Lord Pešek himself entered. He was a striking man in his late thirties, standing around six feet, leanly muscled with hazel eyes flecked with blue. He had dark hair shaved at the sides, long and slicked back at the top. He wore a long, dark blue noble palla adorned with a badge of Maglubiyet.

He greeted them with a smile that made them feel immediately at ease. “You must be the three brave warriors who saved my gladiator.”

Pandora blinked with surprise. “Your gladiator?”

“Yes, I am Damianos’s patron. Lord Pešek, but you can call me Roman.”

“Pleasure to meet you.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Icarus echoed. “I’m Icarus Pelayo.”

Mayes shook his hand. “Mayes Hasagawa.”

“Pandora Di Rossi,” Pandora followed.

“My pleasure,” he smiled. “Please, walk with me.”

He turned, beckoning them after. He led them down a hall, and they passed by a junction to the left with a few dark wooden doors lining the hall before he brought them straight out into the gardens. It was a beautiful, sunny day, as it normally was even during winter in Erran. There were a number of gardeners who kept to themselves, busy with their work, but they all seemed rather content.

“So, I have heard Damen’s account of what happened, but I’d love to hear it from yourselves.”

“We were just invited to watch,” Icarus explained. “And, I’m sure Damen’s told you that the construct came out as planned, and then two more that weren’t constructs arrived.”

“Unplanned,” Pandora clarified.

“Unplanned. Appeared in the tunnels.”

“It seemed wrong to not do anything about it,” Mayes continued. “So…”

“That’s very noble of you,” Pešek smiled.

“You can also thank Adrian, one of the arcane gladiators.”

“Yeah, he got us in there,” Pandora agreed. “We wouldn’t have been able to do anything without him.”

“Okay,” he nodded. “Aside from your heroic actions, I have to ask, because I’m curious and worried, is there anything else you know about what happened?”

The trio regarded him for a moment. They didn’t know him at all, but he looked welcoming and he seemed honest, with genuine concern in his eyes.

“I’ve heard that you are a very generous person,” Icarus began.

“Yes?”

“And as somebody that is Damen’s patron… it is kind of confusing to me that he lives in such squalor.”

Pešek sighed. “What do you know about Damianos?”

“...He made some enemies.”

“That he certainly did.”

“He has a kid,” Mayes added.

“He did some fighting underground,” Icarus continued. “Five years ago.”

At that, Pandora and Mayes looked to Icarus with surprise, but the triton stared resolutely forwards.

Pešek met his eye, and nodded. “Damen grew up in something of an unsavory environment. And he joined the army when he was fourteen, as a waterboy. He trained until he was something of an elite soldier. It looked like he was going to have a really good career ahead of him, maybe even climb the ranks, become a general. But, there was always something about him that… he couldn’t get on with authority. And unfortunately, he had disagreement after disagreement… until one day, and you’ll have to ask him the details of it if you want it, but… he had a falling out with one of his commanders. Not only dishonorably discharged, but punished pretty severely for what he said.”

‘Wow,” Pandora frowned. “Must have been pretty bad.”

“It was. On top of that, he had a gambling problem in the past, got himself mixed up with some criminal organization in Erran. Tried to pay off his debts, ended up making more debts for himself, which I ended up paying off for him.” Pešek looked thoughtful for a beat, and then continued. “What do you know about the Maw? The history of it?”

Icarus knew quite a bit, as did Mayes, but Pešek explained for Pandora’s sake. The Maw used to be the ultimate punishment for prisoners rather than exile. The life expectancy of gladiators used to be significantly shorter, only a few years at most. Then, when Damianos entered the arena, he became a champion so fast that he transformed the way that the Maw operated.

“He organized the prisoners there like they were a military force. And suddenly, the gladiators were winning far more fights than they were losing. That’s how he caught my attention, and I decided to become his patron. And, from there, together, we sort of built up this persona that he has. Over a couple of years, the Maw transformed into what it is now. This was years and years ago, now the fights are less bloody, more of it’s staged… the Coliseum became a family entertainment place, and gladiators became the celebrated individuals they are now.”

Pešek smiled proudly for a moment before his face fell again. “But Damen has always continued to struggle looking after himself, and so… he dumps a lot of money on his kid, he lost a lot of money gambling, he owes me a fair amount of money now. What I’m worried about is if those people that he owed money to in the past are the exact people that tried to kill him.”

Pandora considered his words. “You said that all of his debts from that side of things were paid off though, right?”

“Yeah, I paid them off as far as I knew about them, but…”

“So why would they still be after him?”

“New debts,” Icarus suggested.

“Or they just hold a grudge,” Mayes added.

Pešek nodded. “Maybe, maybe.”

“Do you know about how he used to fight with these less savory people?” Icarus wondered. 

“I don’t know that much about it. I know that he would fight with beasts and not people. It’s all got me thinking, because obviously chimeras aren’t exactly the easiest creatures to get your hands on. And they wanted spectacle out of it, they wanted to do it in public, to make a fool of him, of me…”

“But they didn’t succeed,” Mayes interjected.

“They did not. Thanks to you three. You know… the three of you saving Damen has likely saved the Maw. Accidents happen from time to time, but there hasn’t been a gladiator death in three years. I imagine seeing the Coliseum's king killed in the arena fighting would have changed everything about the Coliseum for the worse. You’ve done a much bigger thing for the city than you possibly could have imagined.”

“We were just trying to help a friend of ours,” Pandora blushed.

“Well, I can’t thank you enough. And, I want to repay you in some way that will be significant for quite some time.”

“Wow, thank you.”

“Come, this way.”

He beckoned them around the garden to a different room. Opening a wooden door, he brought them through to a small personal library. There were metal grates across some of the bookshelves, containing important and expensive artifact books.

In the center was a stone plinth, with an old, antiquated book on top of it. It was bound together with twine around brittle pages and separated leather covers.

He gestured towards it. “Damianos told me about your dreams. He mentioned something about the Fates, about needing to interpret information… and so, I’m sorry for how long it’s taken me to reach out to the three of you, but it’s taken some time for me to locate what I was…”

“What is it?” Pandora asked.

They approached closer. Recognizing the language, Mayes and Icarus gasped in surprise.

Icarus put a hand over his mouth. “Wow…”

“What is it?” Pandora asked.

“This is Celestial.”

“Really?”

“It’s quite delicate,” Pešek warned. “But…”

He put a glove on to open the pages. On the inside, the trio recognized sketches of three women with a blade.

“The Moirai,” Mayes whispered.

“I can’t read it, I don’t know what it says, but… I have it on good authority that the book pertains to the demiplane of Fate, the languages of the celestial realm… I pulled some strings to get my hands on it.”

Icarus grinned. “Hah, strings...”

Pešek chuckled. “It’s yours to use however you need to. I just ask that you don’t damage it. To be honest, it belongs in a museum.”

“Of course not,” Pandora promised.

Icarus stared at the book. “This is…”

“Amazing.”

“Incredibly generous,” Mayes agreed.

“We had a dream last night with Damen again,” Icarus admitted. “So this is going to be… hopefully, incredibly helpful.”

“It’s come at the perfect time,” Pandora agreed.

Mayes appraised the book for a moment. “Perhaps a fated time.”

“Well, whatever you need to protect my gladiator,” Pešek declared. “I don’t want anything happening to Damianos.”

“Of course not,” Pandora returned. “Neither do we.”

“Here…”

He wrapped the book in a silk cloth, lifting it off the plinth and passing it over. As he did, they noticed an arcane rune on the back cover, swirling with gold and white.

Pandora took the book reverently. Doing her best to look natural, she bent to sniff it, hoping to catch a bit of the wonderful, musty smell of old books.

Mayes definitely noticed her, as did Lord Pešek. Icarus was too busy staring at their host.

“If I could just bottle that scent,” Pandora mumbled in defense.

Pešek grinned. “I hope it helps you.”

“I’m sure it will. Thank you so much, this is so generous.”

“If you need anything else, you know where to find me. If it pertains to Damen, it matters to me.”

“Are you expecting this back at any point?”

“I’m not in any particular hurry, but maybe at some point.”

“Okay. We’ll take good care of it.”

“Thank you so much,” Icarus repeated.

“Not a problem,” Pešek assured them.

Mayes gave a polite nod. “Very kind of you… Roman.”

“We should probably go and see Helena,” Icarus realized.

“Show her the book.”

“Then I will let you go,” Pešek replied.

“Thank you.” Icarus turned to go, and then stopped. “Can I make just one request? That if you ever want to see us again… please don't send the trumpet.”

“Oh, please don’t send the trumpet,” Mayes agreed.

“Please,” Pandora begged. “Please don’t!”

Pešek looked pretty amused with himself. “Maybe.”

_ “Please,” _ Icarus repeated.

“Maybe.”

“Please don’t send more.”

“Definitely please,” Pandora pleaded.

Pešek just laughed.

“We’re going to get five trumpets next time,” Mayes groaned.

Pandora covered her face. “No!”

Mayes chuckled, tapping Icarus. “It’s okay, I’ll dream of them first.”

Icarus burst out in laughter.

“A warning,” Pandora giggled. “Thank you so much.”

“No problem,” Pešek smiled. “Which way are you going? I’m headed to the temple anyway.”

They gave Helena’s general address, and he welcomed them to take his carriage with him.

“Awesome, thank you,” Icarus agreed. “Let me just let Damen know…”

He put a hand on his necklace.  _ “We’re heading to Helena’s to try and interpret last night. If you’d like to meet us there?” _

Damen’s voice returned.  _ “Sure thing Tadpole. See you shortly.” _

Icarus let go of the necklace to report to the others. “Okay, he’s on his way.”

The students climbed into the carriage, glad to avoid the fee of the public carts. After a while, he let them off near Helena’s before continuing on towards the temple of Maglubiyet.

“Thank you very much,” Icarus smiled.

“Thank you, good to meet you,” Pandora waved.

Pešek smiled at them all. “Thank you. I’m sure I’ll see you again.”

“Maybe without the trumpets next time please?”

He laughed, pulling the curtain back across. “We’ll see.”

  
  


Helena’s place was central in the city, in one of the nicer residential districts. An Errani style townhouse, the two story building was terraced amongst other similar buildings. On her door, a number of constellations were carved into the wood by hand.

They knocked, and Helena opened the door. The now familiar dark skinned woman was wearing a golden palla this time, and dripping in constellation themed jewelry, her dreaded hair tied up into a bun. “Come inside, please.”

“It’s nice to see you again,” Icarus smiled.

“And you.”

“I hope we’re not interrupting anything.”

“Not at all.”

The inside of the house was simple and well kept, with rolled up scrolls and neatly piled texts all around. A ladder stood in one corner with a pot of paint beside it. Glancing up, they saw the ceiling was in the process of being painted with a perfect visage of the night sky.

“Please, come and sit down. Let me get you some tea. Damianos?”

Pandora glanced up. “Oh, he’s here already?”

She led them through, and they saw Damen lounging back on her couch, his cup of tea looking quite small in his big hands. He looked much better than he had the last time they had seen him in real life, though he wasn’t completely healed yet.

“Hey,” he grinned. “Good to see you in the flesh.”

“Yeah, and not in creepy temples,” Mayes agreed.

Pandora went to give him a hug, which he returned.

Icarus frowned at him. “Good to see you not with a sword through your throat.”

Damen waved dismissively. “Through my chest, thank you.”

“Yeah, we need to talk about that,” Pandora worried.

“Shh, it’s okay, it’s fine, it’s nothing. It woke us up, didn’t it?”

“Maybe we should have tried something else first,” Mayes countered.

“We were wandering around for ages!”

“I mean, lack of patience isn’t a good reason to do what you did.”

He shrugged. “It was a dream.”

“We still have to deal with the image of you stabbing yourself in front of us,” Icarus rebuked.

“Well next time I’ll tell you to close your eyes.”

Icarus shook his head. “You’re infuriating.”

Damen gave him a wide grin, and Icarus couldn’t help but smile back.

Mayes sat down. “I take it you’ve filled Helena in on some stuff?”

“Uh, yeah. Well, I’ve been talking about what I remember from the dream,” he shrugged.

“We met with Roman,” Icarus replied.

Damen raised a brow. “Lord Paycheck?”

“Lord Pešek,” Pandora corrected.

Damen gave her a look. “Paycheck.”

Pandora glanced to Icarus and Mayes. They were both holding back laughter, but she was still confused. “Pešek.”

“Lord Paycheck, that’s what I’m saying.”

“No, no, his name is Lord Pešek.”

“That's what I’m saying,” Damen grinned.

“No it’s not.”

“Lord Paycheck.”

“No! Lord Pešek!”

“That’s what I’m saying!”

“No it’s not Damen!”

“Lord Paycheck,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed. “Lord Paycheck.”

“Lord Paycheck.”

Pandora turned back to the others. “Guys!”

“Lord Paycheck,” Damen declared. “And he gives me money.”

“Yeah I know, but that’s…” she rubbed her face, exasperated.

“Roman,” Mayes compromised.

“Yeah,” Damen laughed. “Roman Paycheck.”

“Yeah, Roman Paycheck,” Icarus agreed. “That’s what he introduced himself to us as.”

“No it wasn’t!” Pandora insisted, infuriated.

Icarus laughed, then relented. “We’re pulling your leg, Pandora.”

Pandora had grown physically hotter as she grew angrier, and Icarus had just started to notice.

“Agh!” He shifted away from her, moving towards Mayes. “I want to swap seats, I want to swap seats!”

Mayes batted him off. “Get away!”

“No, I want to swap seats! I hate this! I don’t want to be near the hot one!”

Icarus kept trying to scoot away, but Mayes presented a firm elbow, pushing him back towards Pandora.

Pandora grabbed Icarus’s arm. “Pešek! Say it!”

“Paycheck!” Damen beamed.

Icarus struggled to pull away from the tiefling. “Agh! She’s burning me!”

Damen laughed, and waved a hand. “Anyway. What did Pešek want with you?”

Pandora released the triton, and Icarus leaned back in his seat with immediate relief.

“Oh, he gave us a really useful book,” Mayes replied. “He was just really grateful for everything.”

“And we wanted to see if Helena knew what it was,” Icarus added.

“Or if she could read it,” Pandora finished.

Helena came back into the room with a tray of tea. “If I could read what?”

Pandora carefully took the book out, unwrapping it.

“It seems to be in Celestial,” Mayes explained.

As soon as Helena saw it, she gasped. “Oh my lords…”

“Can you read it? Pandora asked.

“Um, that’s… that’s definitely the language of the Celestial realm. I do have a book somewhere here that can translate…”

She hurried into another room to search through, the tea forgotten. Mayes went for the tray, serving it out to the others as they waited.

“Pretty funky looking book,” Damen commented.

“It’s old,” Icarus agreed.

“Yeah, well, he likes old stuff.”

Icarus grinned. “Like you.”

“I’m not that old! Wow. He’s older than me,” Damen grumbled, leaning back in his seat. “I’ll kill you,” he teased. “I’ll get you.”

“You can’t catch me.”

“You wanna bet? You wanna go?”

“He’s very slippery,” Pandora warned.

“Very slippery,” Mayes echoed.

Damen made challenging eye contact with Icarus, sizing him up. “We could go. Maybe not right here in this house, but…”

Before long, Helena returned with a small book of languages. She flopped down on the floor, her palla spreading out around her. She had a long, thin piece of wood she used to flip the delicate pages without touching them. “Okay… this is going to take me awhile, but… just talk, just tell me things about your dreams, and I’ll read.”

“Sure,” Icarus replied. “So the last one we had, last night… felt like we were in a patchwork version of Erran.”

“We started in tunnels,” Mayes began. “Separated.”

“And the ceiling collapsed.”

“The ceiling collapsed, and we were pulled together by- ”

“True love,” Icarus grinned.

Helena looked up, eyebrow cocked.

“I’m kidding. Please, continue.”

“The threads of Fate,” Mayes corrected.

“It took us awhile to find each other,” Pandora continued, “But we were all connected by strings that were attached to our chests.”

“There were mosaic tiles of waves leading to a hill,” Mayes recalled.

Helena took notes on a separate piece of paper. “Okay, waves…”

“With a sun rising- ”

“Or setting,” Icarus added.

“Could be either. And then, an army marching.”

“And then when we all looked out the window, there were the Legions marching.”

Helena glanced back up. “The Errani Legions?”

“The Errani Legions,” Pandora confirmed.

“And a battle horn sounding,” Icarus continued. “And they were wearing their uniforms from  _ now.” _

“Okay, okay…” Helena noted that down, and turned back to the book. “So, the book. The title page, it reads  _ The Book of Moirai. _ It appears to be written by someone who declares themselves as a human vessel for the Fates. An oracle, they call themselves. And it confirms that the three Fates are, in fact, lesser deities!”

She looked incredibly excited, her life’s work culminating in this book. Pandora sat next to her on the floor, cross legged. Helena scooted closer to her, pointing out what she had translated. “And they can only deliver messages to the mortal realm themselves in the form of images and dreams, but through an oracle, a vessel… it can be visions or spoken word. And that’s the person who wrote this book. And I assume, in a Celestial language, to keep the knowledge secret for only the worthy.”

Pandora let out a low breath. “We’re so lucky to have our hands on this thing.”

“This is incredible. It says that the Moirai encourage individuals on the right path to prevent disastrous events from occurring, that no destiny is set in stone. The path is always changeable, should the individuals want to follow the signs.”

“We just need to figure out what these signs are,” Icarus concluded. “To prevent… some kind of war?”

“Maybe,” Pandora nodded.

“We saw the Colossus of Erran fallen in pieces,” Mayes explained.

Helena shook her head. “That happened years ago.”

“But is it maybe symbolic of Erran itself?”

Her eyes sparked with recognition. “People at the time thought that when the Colossus fell, that would be the fall of Erran. That’s got to be something…” she scribbled that down.

“So what, they reckon that Erran may fall now?” Pandora worried.

“Or that Erran may fall if this path isn’t changed.”

“If this war isn’t stopped, that’s what it is,” Icarus concluded.

“There was a book on a plinth,” Pandora continued. “Like, a stone book? And, on one page there was a knife, and on the other there was a spool of thread.”

Mayes looked down to the book on the floor. “I feel like that was this book, maybe.”

“That is the knife and the thread of the Moirai,” Helena nodded. “Okay, so some of the symbols in your dreams might be interpreted literally. That’s something else… Let’s go through everything.”

Okay,” Pandora nodded. “And then of course, there was that huge snake.”

“The spirit naga,” Mayes confirmed.

Helena frowned. “Spirit naga?”

“Which… the only time we’ve heard about those before was the one that we were told about in the Labyrinth.”

“Tried to ascend to Godhood,” Icarus recalled.

Helena continued her notes. “So maybe someone trying to… ascend to Godhood?”

“Potentially,” Mayes mused. “And if you think back to the first room we had, the Father Of All Monsters… it was just a person in the end. A monstrous person.”

“Yes, you told me before,” Helena remembered. “The typhon. So, if that was an overwhelmingly threatening monster that turned into a person in a robe, as you said, then perhaps it does literally represent a person, or maybe a group of people, whose intentions are the threat.”

“And the floor was tiled with hydras,” Mayes added. “Which you said… cut off one head, more grow back, so it could just be an organization.”

“That’s something, cut off one head and that’s not taking out the whole threat.”

“And, in our first dream,” Pandora replied, “Damen seemed to know the individual before we arrived.”

Damen shrugged. “Uh… I know a lot of people.”

“How about the people that you’re in trouble with?” Icarus prompted.

Damen blinked. “…Well yeah, I know them.”

“Could it be them? Kondou and his lot?”

He scratched his head. “Starting a war? I can’t… doesn’t seem likely, but, I don’t know.”

“I mean, it could be something to do with him,” Pandora worried. “The chimeras that attacked you.”

“Yeah, that…”

“Could be a warning.”

“I don’t know what they’d be warning me about.”

Icarus looked over to the gladiator. “I don’t think it was supposed to be a warning for you. When we were watching from the stands, before we managed to get in there to you, and we saw your red string break. And then we changed fate, we stopped that from happening. I don’t think you were supposed to survive.”

Damen swallowed. “So you changed the path.”

“And we can keep changing it.”

“Hm. Okay… So, I was supposed to die there.”

“Yeah.”

“But, dying in the dream still wakes me up, so maybe I might be dying again,” he grumbled. “Who knows. Okay, what else, what else…”

“The water,” Mayes suggested. “The temple was flooded with water.”

“Yeah, it was flooded,” Pandora recalled.

“A flood often represents an overwhelming force to come,” Helena offered. “The water level rising, running out of time… but we don’t know which of these symbols to interpret literally. Just like Damen’s death in the first dream doesn’t necessarily mean that was pertaining to him dying. Death is often viewed as not literal.”

“Rebirth?” Icarus guessed.

“Or the destruction of someone’s life, but not their physical death.”

“We were able to defeat the creature in this previous dream. We weren’t able to do that in the first one.”

“Then maybe this is something that… you are going to be able to defeat? Or maybe it’s something that you shouldn’t, I don’t know. It’s hard without having seen the dream.”

“And it’s just all so vague,” Pandora complained. “It’s all,  _ could _ mean this,  _ could _ mean that.”

They continued discussing for another half hour, listing off everything they could remember and looking over their notes. She told them that the way their tunnels seemed to stretch on into absolute darkness suggested following this road might lead to significant and unforeseen changes in their lives, while the wide river emanating green light could represent the river of the dead, and the concept of toying with the balance between life and death. It might mean there would be a lot weighing on their actions in the days to come.

One thing she was certain of was that, whatever happened, whatever the coming storm was, it was now much closer than it was.

“And the fact that you saw the red threads tugging on you, it’s like the Fates are trying to coerce you into action, but you don’t know what over yet. Fate sure is wiley…”

“Is there anything we can do about it?” Pandora implored. “I guess if we don’t know what we’re waiting for, we can’t prepare ourselves.”

“Is there any way… this sounds so crazy,” Icarus chuckled. “Any way to contact the Moirai directly and just…?”

“Maybe there’s something more in this book,” she offered. “If you leave it here with me to read…”

“We can do that.”

“Okay. Let's try and focus on just one thing. The naga, that’s the one thing you just recognized immediately, right? Everything else, you’ve said  _ I don’t know where that was, I don’t know what that was… _ is there anything else you can tell me about it?”

“Red and blue stripes,” Icarus offered.

“Human face,” Pandora added.

“Slithered behind the walls a lot,” Icarus recalled. “Until Damen called it forward.”

“Yeah, it didn’t attack us until we were all together,” Pandora realized. “It could have attacked us separately.”

“And it just circled until Damen shouted for something to happen.”

“A sign that… you have to make something happen?” Helena suggested.

“Tempt Fate?” Pandora worried. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“You said you heard of this through a real one? In a labyrinth?”

“There’s the labyrinth that our first exam was done in,” Mayes explained. “There was a story of a spirit naga that was using something to gain some sort of power, some sort of ascension. Just seems like a weird coincidence that the two things would come up. It was Alexis’s dad that found it…”

“Councilor Leonida,” Icarus nodded.

“Yeah, he has a medal for it, doesn’t he,” Pandora recalled.

Mayes leaned back in their seat. “And he keeps coming up in our lives.”

“Are you in any trouble with him, Damen?”

Damen shook his head. “No.”

“You tempted Fate,” Mayes remembered, turning to Icarus. “You mentioned him to Kondou.”

“Yeah,” Pandora frowned.

Icarus gave a small grin. “A little bit. It got a reaction.”

“Then that seems like it could be something,” Helena declared. “It’s the first thing you have, right? You have the connection to Damianos through this Kondou person.”

Damen cleared his throat awkwardly, brushing his hair back.

“And you have a connection to the spirit naga,” she continued. “This is something you need to find out more about. Find out what fate you can tempt.”

“Pretty good at doing that,” Icarus grinned.

“Whatever it’s gonna be, just prepare yourselves. I don’t want anything bad happening to the three of you. The  _ four _ of you.”

Damen rolled his eyes.

“Well, thank you for all the help that you have given so far,” Pandora offered. “We wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without you.”

“Just doing what I can. I mean, you’re helping me out significantly,” she smiled. “I just learned more about the Fates in the last ten minutes reading through the front page of this than I have done in years of research. Who knows what else I could find in this book.”

“Well, Lord Pešek- ”

“Paycheck,” Damen grinned.

“Lord  _ Pešek,” _ Pandora continued, shooting him a warning glance, “Didn’t really give any indication of wanting it back anytime soon. Just said, take good care of it.”

“Great,” Helena replied. “I wonder what other secrets it holds.”

“Feel free to take your time,” Icarus smiled. “It’s not like we can do anything with it. Thank you for your help.”

“Thank you for bringing this to me, and for trusting me to help you with this.”

“Of course.”

She turned the book closed to the back cover, and noticed the rune there. “What’s this?”

“I don’t know,” Pandora replied. “I’ve never seen it before.”

Helena flicked through her book of Celestial, but found nothing. “I don’t know…”

She looked down into it. Where her eyes were white, the trio began to see a reflection of the gold glow of the rune.

Icarus watched her with concern. “Helena?”

Almost like she couldn’t stop herself, she reached down and touched it. Helena let out an ear piercing shriek. All of the swirling white and gold filtered up as a light over her arm before filling her eyeballs. For a moment, she was frozen there, stiff as a statue.

Then, she sighed, and eased again.

“Helena?” Icarus repeated.

Pandora looked on in fear. “Are you okay?”

Helena turned to Icarus. Slowly, she reached out a hand towards him. “Take my hand, child.”

It sounded like her voice, but there was a strange, distant lilt to it.

Icarus carefully took her hand. In an instant, the two of them were carried away into a vision.

  
  


Icarus was no longer in Helena’s living room. He was at sea, a storm raging around him. Looking around, he understood that he was on the ship he came to Erran on. Violent waves sloshed over the deck, the galleon rocking back and forth as uniform clad naval men charged across it securing lines, trying to keep the mast steady.

He heard a voice from across the deck. “Oskar!”

He turned, and saw a figure screaming in the dark.

“Oskar, get back here! It isn’t safe!”

A bolt of lightning hit the ship’s mast. For a moment, he could see through the downpour to the bright blue eyes of Niklaus Müeller. His long hair swept out of its ribbon by the wind, his expression was wrought with panic as he reached out a hand towards him.

The mast creaked and groaned. Flames from the lightning erupted over the wet sails.

Niklaus’s hand stretched ever further, desperately reaching out for his. “Please, I can help you!”

The sky grew dark. The sun was setting beneath the storm clouds. It didn’t seem right, that wasn’t how the weather was that day.

Icarus looked out to the horizon, and he saw it. As though in slow motion, as the last rays dipped beneath the line of the dark, choppy sea. The green flash.

In it, he saw the distinct shape of his Goddess. Her multiple arms stretched out towards him. Her body was as large as the galleon he stood on. Lightning crackled again, illuminating her beautiful face, with two white eyes luring him towards her.

“Oskar!”

He heard the voice behind him, but he couldn’t turn away.

Then, he heard her voice all around him, as if spoken from the Heavens themselves.

_ “Icarus. Chase the sun. Freedom awaits you.” _

  
  


The vision faded instantly, and he found himself staring into Helena’s eyes as the gold faded away.

Looking around himself, he saw the others in the room staring at him.

Damen’s face twisted in confusion. “Freedom awaits you? What does that mean?”

  
  



	21. The Brotherhood of the Griffon, Episode Twenty-One

Pandora and Mayes stood alongside Damen in Helena’s home, watching the pair frozen in place, gazing into the distance. Icarus’s mouth fell agape, his face twisting in despair, tears rolling down in thick rivulets. The room was almost unnervingly silent for more than a minute until they saw Helena’s mouth open, and a different voice came from her tongue.

_ “Icarus. Chase the sun. Freedom awaits you.” _

The gold in her eyes faded away to pure white. Icarus looked around himself as Damen spoke up.

“Freedom awaits you? What does that mean?"

“Uh… I…” Pandora stared at Helena in shock. “What?”

Immediately, Helena dropped her head. Coming back to herself, they could see her shaking slightly. She looked down at her hands and around the room. “I can’t… I can’t see…”

Pandora’s eyes went wide as she covered her mouth. “Oh, God…”

Mayes took a step closer. “What?”

Helena gulped, fear rising in her tone. “I, I can’t see!”

Her pure white eyes shifted and moved, not focusing on anything.

Pandora reached out her arms, trying to calm her. “It’s okay!”

“Can you do something, Pandora?” Mayes urged.

“I don’t know, I, um…”

Helena reached out, feeling for Pandora.

She grabbed her hand. “It’s okay, we’ll figure this out!”

From what Pandora knew about arcane symbols, she could assume that there was magic stored in the glyph on the back of the book that had now transferred to Helena. But Pandora had never seen the glyph before, and none of it was written in a language she understood.

“Helena, what is this glyph that you touched on the book? Do you know anything about it?”

She shook her head. “No, I just… I don’t even know what happened. I was drawn to it.”

“It’s okay, you’re going to be okay. Um…” Pandora held her hands around Helena’s head, sending out a spell meant to remove harmful curses. The magic flowed through her, passing into Helena, but her eyes remained blind. “It’s not a curse, at least not one that I know of…”

Helena tried to steady her breathing. “That’s okay…”

“We’ll get you help, I promise you.”

On the other side of the room, Mayes moved quietly over to Icarus, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Hey. Icarus. You good?”

Icarus had been staring off in thought, but he startled a bit at the contact, turning his head slightly at the noise. “Hm? Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

“Yeah. No, yeah yeah…”

“How are you feeling, buddy?”

Pandora looked over to him with concern. “What did you see?”

Icarus took a deep breath, shaking his head. “I saw… Kord.”

“Like…  _ Kord _ Kord?  _ The _ Kord?”

Helena took a seat, and Damen sat comfortingly beside her. “It was. It was Lady Kord. I know it was.”

“What happened?”

Helena shook her head. “That ship…”

Icarus gulped. “Yeah. You saw all that, huh?”

“All of it.”

Damen piped up. “Helena, you spoke in a different voice.”

“That was Kord,” Icarus declared.

“That was  _ Kord?” _

“That’s… huge,” Mayes stammered. “Your God is literally…  _ talking _ to you.”

“Chase the sun, freedom awaits you?” Pandora repeated. “Is that what she said?”

Icarus was silent.

Damen looked over with concern. “You okay?”

Icarus sniffed, and nodded. “I think she wants me to go to the green flash.”

“That story that Aio told us about?” Mayes replied.

“I don’t think it’s a story.”

Helena nodded. “We saw, on the horizon, a green light as the sun was going down. And we  _ saw _ her.”

Pandora shook her head in confusion. “What, you think she’s  _ there _ in the green flash?”

“I don’t know, but I think that’s where she wants us to go,” Icarus replied. “Or,  _ me. _ She wants  _ me _ to go. I think that might be… related to the boat.”

“Boat?” Mayes prompted.

“There was a storm, and a ship,” Helena expanded.

Mayes took in Icarus’s somber expression.  _ “That _ boat? How you wound up here on Erran in the first place?”

“...Yeah. Yeah, I suppose I should… tell you a little more about that, huh…” Icarus took in a shaky breath, laughing quietly.

“It’s okay,” Pandora assured him. “Take your time.”

Icarus sat down. Wiping his face, he held his head in his hands for a minute, just breathing.

Damen sighed. “Well, it’s been quite the intense day…”

“Tell me about it,” Icarus mumbled.

“I think perhaps I should get a Priest or a High Priestess to come look at Helena.”

“I think that’s a good idea. There’s one near here.”

“I don’t… I don’t want to make any assumptions, but… I mean, I have heard stories that interacting with the Gods leaves people… in interesting states.”

Icarus rubbed his face. “Fuck… Okay, yeah.”

“I mean, we can wait here awhile…”

“Maybe it will come back,” Helena whispered. “I’ll just… give it half an hour, or… please don’t feel like you have to stay. I’m very safe and comfortable in Damen’s care, don’t worry.”

Pandora wrung her hands. “As long as you’re sure…”

“Do you want to stay and talk about what we saw?”

Icarus swallowed, and then nodded. “Yeah.”

“We can give you guys some privacy,” Mayes offered.

“No, you guys deserve to know. You’ve proved yourself time and time again that… I can trust you.” He turned to Helena. “Have you got any drink here? Anything to…?”

“Oh, uh…” she made to stand, but had to put a hand out to steady herself.

“Just tell me where,” Icarus assured her.

“Um, there’s more tea in the kitchen, and wine, if you want it.”

“I will go grab some wine and tea. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a second, I just need to… stretch my legs?” Icarus took a few deep breaths as he stood. “For a hot second?”

“Okay.”

Icarus left the room. He took a breath in the kitchen, leaning against one of the counters and doing his best to not have a panic attack then and there.

The others were left in the main part of the house to wait.

“Have you ever had anything like this before?” Pandora asked. “Seeing visions like that?”

Helena shook her head. The fear in her voice was slowly shifting to reverence. “No. It was… it was really something. I mean, everything we read in that book about oracles, human vessels for the Fates… that was fascinating, but I’ve never… it’s all been theoretical, in all of my research.”

“Yeah. I mean, I didn’t expect to see it manifest right in front of us.”

“Of all the people that we’ve met, you’re the most suitable for that kind of… task, that power,” Mayes offered.

She laughed quietly. “I don’t know about that, but… it is quite incredible. That was… I saw a  _ Goddess.” _

“Wow,” Pandora murmured. “That really is something…”

“I have to say, I implore all three of you to find out what you can about this green flash before you chase anything.”

“Of course. Wouldn’t want to just run headlong blindly into something.”

“Into a story we heard on a boat,” Mayes chuckled.

Icarus came back in with the tea and some bottles of wine under an arm. “Here we go. Anyone who wants any, here it is.”

He let out another sigh. “I need, I need to talk about this…”

Icarus uncorked a bottle of wine and began pacing back and forth, taking a swig directly from the bottle. “When I touched Helena, we saw… a memory. My memory,  _ my _ memory. From before I came to Erran. And I told you that I was on a ship that was in a storm, which is how I got that scar on my back… What I guess, I didn’t tell you, is that I always saw it as a blessing from Kord.”

“What, the shipwreck?” Pandora clarified.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I saw it… that she was saving me.”

Mayes looked him up and down. “You didn’t like the life you had before?”

“Nope. My… my name is Icarus Pelayo, that’s… that’s my name, that’s  _ me, _ I am  _ Icarus. _ ...I used to be Oskar.”

Pandora tilted her head. “Oskar?”

“Yeah. Oskar Müller.”

“...Like Niklaus Müller.”

“He was my older brother. Kind of, not really, we’re not related… I would never call him my brother, but I guess that’s what he is.”

“Is he a triton as well?”

“No, no. I’m not lying about that, I’ve never met another triton.”

“No, it’s fine, I’m not saying you’re lying…”

“No, I know, I know I know I know…”

“Take your time,” Mayes advised.

Icarus rubbed his face. “When the shipwreck happened, I grabbed it as an opportunity to get away. And… I kind of just assumed that the ship went down, and everyone else died on it. I never thought anyone gave a shit, you know, when I went overboard. But that vision showed me that… might not be the case.”

“Was it Niklaus you were trying to get away from?” Pandora asked. “Or just your old life?”

“Both. His parents, my parents… not my parents, but, they took me in.”

“Took you in… when? How old were you?”

He shrugged. “Infant.”

“So you never really knew anything before that,” Mayes guessed.

“No. I was paraded around, you know?” Icarus laughed bitterly, fiddling with the bottle.  _ “Look at us, look how generous we are, we took this child in… _ but behind closed doors, it was always a different story, wasn’t it...”

“You said that you knew they weren’t your parents,” Pandora recalled. “Did they make that very clear?”

“I mean, as clear as being elves could be.”

“Right…”

“We definitely weren’t related. They never treated me like a child. And Niklaus was older than me, he always hated me, so… I don’t know, there. I just, I, I… I took the opportunity and I left, I got away as soon as I could.”

Mayes leaned forwards in their seat. “I’m sorry, Icarus. I’m sorry you went through… that. I’m glad you’re here, though.”

Icarus sniffed again. “Yeah, me too. Though, it feels like I’m not… able to get away from it properly. But, maybe, as Lady Kord said, freedom awaits past that green flash.”

“I mean, if recent events have taught us anything, it’s that your past has a funny way of catching up with you.”

“Apparently so. Always thought I was away from it here. On the other side of Caldera, you know.”

“Where was it you were from originally? Or, where were you when you were living with them?”

“Ferrelstadt.”

“Wow, that is far away.”

“Yeah. It’s kind of why I thought, a bit safer over here…”

“Well that’s it, like… just because he’s back, or at least mentions of him are back, doesn’t mean you need to go back to that life.”

“If I may,” Helena looked up, her eyes still searching the space in front of her. “I would consider the interpretation of the vision to be, perhaps, her Lady Kord… choosing you, for some… other purpose. Not just rescuing you, although I understand that interpretation. But for her to speak to you now, like that… perhaps that destiny, and that green light… is nothing to do with your old life.”

Icarus swallowed. “Then why the vision? Why the memory? It’s not something I wanted to see again, you know?”

“I suppose that was a big moment of change in your life,” Pandora reasoned.

“Maybe she needs you to consider it, and reevaluate it before you’re ready,” Helena suggested. “I’m sorry you went through that.”

He shrugged. “It’s okay.”

Pandora got up and hugged Icarus. Icarus hugged back very gently, resting his face on her shoulder.

“You’re better than them,” she whispered. “And I’m so glad that you became the person you are, despite it.”

He nodded into her shoulder. “Yeah. I’m glad I got you. All of you.”

“That’s it. You do have all of us. You don’t need to do it on your own.”

Icarus pulled back, and wiped his eyes.

“So Tadpole,” Damen began, instantly lightening the mood with his grin. “You want to come with me to the temple and see if we can find somebody who can help Helena?”

“Sure.”

“Maybe we’ll go find a temple to Kord, huh?”

“Yeah, that’d be good. I know where there’s one nearby, so.”

“Helena, do you want us to stay?” Mayes offered. “Or would you rather have time to yourself?”

“Oh no, I’ll be okay,” she smiled slightly.

“Can I get you anything?” Pandora pressed. “Do you need anything?”

“Um, it’s a real shame I can’t read that book…”

Pandora picked the book up and put it in her lap. Helena held on to it. She didn’t look as scared as they would have thought, though perhaps it was the slight shell shock of seeing a God in a vision.

“Who knows, if touching that book made you have some sort of vision, maybe the words inside will just slowly reveal themselves to you,” Mayes suggested.

“That’s a nice idea,” she mused. “Let’s hope.”

“I’d like to hope so.”

Icarus made his way over to Helena. “I’m gonna take your hand, okay?”

She held it up. “Okay.”

He took her hand in his. “I guess, thank you? And… I’m sorry that it led to this, for you.”

“Don’t be sorry. I mean, have we not spent the afternoon talking about fate as it is? Then surely, this was meant to happen.”

Icarus chuckled quietly. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. Thank you.”

“Don’t be afraid, okay?”

“...Okay.”

He kissed the back of her hand very gently, and Helena relaxed back into the seat, staring into nowhere.

“Right, we should give you some space,” Damen rose from his seat. “Me, and possibly Icarus, and possibly another cleric, might be back, but… we’ll see.”

As Damen made to shepard them out of the house, Mayes reached for their bag. “Icarus, before we go our separate ways… I’m gonna go sell the gold hand. Would high fiving it make you feel better?”

Icarus blinked, and his somber face cracked into a grin.

“I know you wanted to,” Mayes chuckled, “And you might not have the chance to do this again.”

Out of sheer surprise, Icarus laughed. “Okay.”

Mayes searched around in their bag, and pulled out the gold hand.

Damen’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“It’s a long story.”

Icarus held up his hand, and Mayes delivered a crisp high five.

Damen hurried over. “I want to high five the hand!”

“Is it one of those good luck things now?” Pandora teased.

Mayes gave the hand a suspicious look.

“Let’s say yes,” Pandora decided.

Mayes held up the hand for Damen. “Let’s hope so.”

Damen grinned and slapped his hand against the golden one.

“I want in if everyone’s doing it!” Pandora called.

Mayes laughed, and offered the hand to Pandora. After she got her high five, Mayes gave one to themselves, and put it back in their bag.

Icarus shook his head, and headed for the door with Damen. “Alright, it’s this way down to the nearest temple.”

“Okay,” Damen nodded. “You two, I’m sure I will see you again soon?”

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “And we’ll see you at Delphos again later?”

“Yeah,” Icarus replied.

“In a couple of hours, we can meet outside?”

“That sounds good. I know it goes without saying, but again… keep Lorakai out of this?”

“This list is getting longer and longer of things we cannot tell him,” Pandora warned.

“Trust me, this is the first time I’ve been keeping things from him, and I’m feeling the pressure of that.”

“I’m sure he’d want to know at some point, when you’re ready.”

“I know, I know.”

“Okay. Just so as long as you do.”

“Right,” Damen waved. “I will see you later. Maybe in my dreams.”

“Hopefully not,” Mayes countered.

“I’d rather see you in real life, not in my dreams,” Pandora agreed.

They went their separate ways.

  
  


Pandora and Mayes wandered aimlessly for a bit, passing by the shops in the town.

“Um, this is kind of a tone shift,” Mayes began, “But I’ve got some errands I need to run, if you want to come along?”

“Sure, you want some company?”

“Yeah, I mean, why not. We hardly ever hang out, just the two of us.”

“I know, we haven’t, have we?”

“Like I said, I figured we could go sell the gold hand, and I could sell off my old sword that I don’t need anymore. And I have bracers to pick up!”

“Oh, from the fleece?”

“Yeah, from the big cat.”

“Okay, cool!”

Pandora rifled through her bag. “Let me just see if I have anything which I can sell…”

“Sure thing. Let’s be… sensible.”

“Let’s be sensible. Should we get some things for the third task, which is bound to be coming up soon?”

“We should get some more potions.”

“Yeah, let’s do that. Let’s see how much we can get for the hand.”

They picked up Mayes’ bracers. They were made of beautiful black leather with the ink designs on top of them, still sparkling like the skin of the saber tooth. With the fleece’s natural enchantment, they were enhanced with the ability to negate the non-magical property of any weapon.

Mayes put them on immediately.

“They suit you!” Pandora complimented. “They’re really pretty.”

“Thank you! I didn’t realize they’d be this sparkly, that’s kind of cool.”

“That’s such a cool design on them.”

“Yeah, I figured… paintings, might as well…”

“Lean into it?”

“Yeah, lean into whatever aesthetic this is.”

“Nice.”

Mayes gave a big thanks to the minotaur and the halfling running the shop, and then the pair set about searching for a place to pawn the golden hand. It took them a bit of wandering around, unsure. They stopped in one place, asking if they would be interested, but the owners took one look before ushering them out of the shop, concerned about where exactly they obtained the hand.

“Maybe we should have a story as to how we got hold of this thing,” Pandora suggested.

“I don’t think the truth is the most conducive thing to be telling here,” Mayes agreed. “That we took it off a cannibal’s corpse.”

“Well I mean he kind of deserved it, but also we should think of something else.”

“Hm… but what sounds convincing that also doesn’t make us out to be tomb robbers or something…”

“I mean, we are students of Delphos, we go on all kinds of contracts and things…”

“That’s true… or… They made it for my uncle, but he liked silver better.”

Pandora grinned. “If you think you could convince them of that.”

“I don't know!”

“I mean, you’re more convincing than I am.”

“I’m good at  _ lying…” _

“I’m not! It shows a lot on my face when I tell a lie.”

“Yeah,” Mayes laughed, “That doesn’t surprise me at all.”

“I just don’t feel comfortable doing it! It feels bad!”

“Okay, well you just smile and nod.”

“I can do that.”

They searched for a while longer before they found two warring pawnshops directly next to each other. One,  _ Gayloss’s Marvelous Vault, _ and the other, _ The Sphinx. _ Glancing in through the open doorways, they saw a quite old, greying male dwarf behind the counter of the first, with a 6’6” female human in the other.

Between the two of them, Pandora whispered conspiratorially to Mayes. “If we go into one and say we’re just wanting to appraise it, and then we go next door and say,  _ they have offered this, can you do any better?” _

“That’s true, we should. But okay, who seems more competitive…?”

Looking inside, the old dwarf seemed quite grouchy, though the inside of his shop seemed in better condition. He seemed protective of his shop, showing off only the best in the display at the front. The woman in the other store had an open bottle of wine and a goblet on the counter with her.

“Let’s try  _ The Sphinx _ first,” Mayes decided.

They headed into the single story building with sandstone walls. The shelves looked to be elven made and finely crafted, though a bit dusty. There was a collection of adventurer’s maps hanging on one wall, and knick knacks and various weaponry on the shelves themselves.

The woman leaned towards them from behind the counter. “What can I do for you?”

“We were just looking to get an item appraised?” Mayes asked.

“Okay…”

Mayes plonked the hand on the counter with a heavy thud, and her eyes widened with intrigue.

Mayes rested an elbow on the counter, spinning the lie. “My grandfather was a great warrior from the island of Vishima. Unfortunately, he lost his hand in battle, and in his old age, isn’t really able to lift this one any more. It was given to him as a ceremonial thing by one of the Lords there. He gave it to me to see what extra cash I could get from it. Very nice old man.”

The woman tilted her head. “Hm, okay… Interesting story.”

She lifted it, weighing it and turning it over before knocking on it to see if it was hollow.

“It’s solid gold,” Pandora explained.

“It is weighty… How could anyone carry that around comfortably?”

“He was strong,” Mayes covered. “I have his sword with me…” they pulled their katana slightly out, showing it off.

“Impressive!” She turned around, dumping the hand on a scale behind her that immediately shifted with the weight. “Interesting… I’d do maybe… 600?”

“Is that the highest you would go?” Pandora needled.

“Well the thing is, with something like this… I don’t know who would buy it.”

“I mean, someone could melt it down and make it into something else, or make it into several of something else…”

“Which they could also do with just 600 gold pieces.”

“I guess, if you look at it more as a historical artifact of a warrior from over the seas,” Mayes tried, “It has some sort of historical, cultural value…”

“That’s true, that’s true, an interesting museum piece… Okay, 650.”

“Okay, okay,” Mayes nodded. “Well, we were just coming to have it appraised, so…”

“We might be back,” Pandora finished.

The woman passed the hand back over, taking a large swig from her goblet. She waved as they left. “Thank you!”

The pair went next door. The dwarf peered up at them through tired round glasses, standing at about chin height at the counter with a long grey beard and wiry hair.

“Good day,” Mayes greeted.

“Welcome to  _ The Marvelous Vault,” _ the man replied.

“Very marvelous in here. You keep a tidy shop.”

“I do, thank you for noticing.”

“Much tidier than next door.”

The man grinned to himself. “Yes, next door…”

This shop was three stories, and inside, the ceiling itself was painted like the night sky with studs of shiny crystals in it to make it shimmer. The space was lit with magical candles.

“Yes, I just was wondering if we could have this appraised?” Mayes pulled out the gold hand.

“Okay…” the man took it from them.

“It’s solid gold,” Pandora repeated. It was the one bit of truth she felt comfortable saying.

As Mayes spun the same tale, the man reached under the counter and took out a small hammer before tapping it on the hand. “You hear that? It’s not solid gold.”

Pandora gasped. “No!”

“The inside is probably… lead?”

Mayes gave the man a once over, but he seemed to be telling the truth.

Pandora turned to Mayes, doing her best to look offended. “Your grandfather has been lied to all this time!”

“Well considering it was given to him by one of the Lords,” Mayes grumbled, doing a much better job at seeming insulted, “I don’t think that sounds right.”

“Well, I could crack it open and see,” the man suggested, “But that would ruin the artifact.”

“Exactly…”

“Well, how much would you say it’s worth?” Pandora asked. “How much would you be willing to buy it for?”

“A historical artifact.”

“Rich culture.”

The man brought out an arcane scale, a floating disc that hovered slightly over its base. The man looked at something on the other side that the pair couldn’t quite see. “600.”

“600,” Mayes mused. “Well the thing is, we went next door first, just because it was the one we passed by first, and they said… they said 720.”

The man frowned. “720… for a gold hand full of lead. Could melt it down, make it into something else… 730.”

“Deal.”

“730 it is.”

The man took the hand, tossing it behind the counter with little care for what it was, and counted out 730 gold pieces.

There were a number of mundane items in the shop, including hammers, manacles, gemstones, various spell components, and something marked “Burglar's Pack.” There were a few healing potions, and a couple of arcane spells, including the spells for  _ Mage Hand _ ,  _ Arms of Hadar, _ and  _ Snare. _ Magnifying glasses, potions of animal friendship, and superior healing potions were all lined up for display.

There were a few really expensive items as well, including a Pipe of the Sewers for summoning rats, and a pair of boots that looked just like the ones Mayes took off the dead mercenary a few days ago. A pair of slippers with beautifully embroidered cobwebs all over them sat next to a cloak that looked quite a bit like a manta ray, and an incredible arcane shield with beautiful runes of all different languages circling around it. By another wall, a morningstar was thrumming with magical energy.

“Can I interest you in any of it?” the man offered.

“How much would you be selling your potions for?” Pandora asked.

Mayes pulled out their permission slip. “And do you take the Delphos credit system?”

“Of course,” he grinned. “Every good shop in this town does.”

“You’re right, every fine establishment would, and this is a fine establishment.”

“Your basic potions coming up at 45 a piece, your greater healing potions at 100 a piece.”

Pandora looked in her bag. “I have one greater and one regular.”

“I’ve got two regular,” Mayes replied. “I’ll take one greater.”

Offering their old sword as part of the deal, the man charged them 85 for the potion. Mayes was very cordial and grateful as they made the trade.

The man turned to Pandora. “And for you?”

She rifled through her stuff, and pulled out a pan flute. “Why do I still have this? I had to learn when I was little, but I was awful. I was never very good, I don’t know why I still have it. Maybe I can just sell it and get the potion instead.”

“I kind of really want to hear you play it now,” Mayes grinned.

“No, you really don’t.”

“Okay, I’ll trust you.”

“I’ve been slaughtering it.”

“I’ll buy it,” the man grinned.

“Perfect, I’ll- ”

“If you play it.”

Pandora sighed, and bought the pan flute to her lips. She played a short, simple song, but the music was utterly beautiful.

The man leaned on the counter, listening with a smile. “Shame that you’re selling it.”

Mayes was thoroughly impressed. “That’s actually pretty good, Pandora.”

“I’ll give you 12 gold for the pan flute.”

“Okay,” Pandora passed it over, pulling out a sleek black quarterstaff. “And this quarterstaff, I’ve never really vibed with it…”

“You’ve got your dagger now as well,” Mayes agreed.

“Yeah, I’ve got that, I don’t need this. It’s kind of just in my way.”

“Those are five a piece,” the man shrugged. “But I’ll give you a gold off.”

“Okay,” Pandora agreed. “Can I give you these and then get a greater healing potion?”

“Yeah, so that’s 13 off… 92?”

“...Can we call it 90, since we’ve had such good business today?”

The man glanced back at the pan flute, and grinned. “Yeah, we’ll call it 90.”

“Nice round number.”

“I do like that.”

“Perfect, thank you! Thank you very much.”

“And then, for both of you,” the man beckoned them closer, “Come on in…”

He stepped up on a little stool behind the counter so he was more level with them. With a wave of his hand, flowers began to appear in Pandora and Mayes’ hair.

He grinned again. “Have a nice day. Thank you for the business.”

“Thank you, good sir,” Mayes smiled.

“Thank you so much!” Pandora echoed. “What was your name?”

“Telchor,” he replied.

“Thank you Telchor. We’ll be sure to tell our friends about this place.”

“Thank you very much. Don’t forget about  _ The Marvelous Vault!” _

“How could we ever forget about  _ The Marvelous Vault?” _

“And don’t go to  _ The Sphinx!” _ he warned. “The woman’s a drunk.”

“Never,” Mayes chuckled. “Thank you.”

They made their way out, white flowers in their hair.

Pandora beamed. “That was nice!”

“That was really nice.”

“We should do this again sometime.”

“We should, this is… this is so calm,” Mayes chuckled.

“Right?”

“Do you want to like… we’ve got time until we should go back to school, do you want to just like… go to a cafe? Hang out and get some nice drinks?”

“Sure! It’s nice to take a bit of time off revising. Let’s go get a drink.”

Mayes and Pandora headed to the tea shop. As they headed out, they passed a familiar face.

“Hi Lorakai!” Pandora waved.

“Hi Pandora!” he called back. “Hi Mayes!”

“Hey, Lorakai,” Mayes nodded.

They could see Lorakai’s face searching for Icarus to no avail as he left the shop.

“He’s around,” Pandora assured him.

“We’ll catch him later,” Mayes explained. “We’re going to meet him at school.”

Pandora and Mayes sat at the tea shop and spent a few hours chatting. Mayes mentioned the upcoming dance classes, and Pandora quickly deflected, using her date with Adrian as the perfect excuse to get out of it.

“So you’re not going to come to the dance class?”

“Oh, no, what a shame!” Pandora grinned. “I can’t go to the dance class! I have a prior engagement!”

“I can see that you’re really devastated about that.”

“So heartbroken!”

“Pandora, you really aren’t good at lying, are you?”

“No,” she laughed.

“Well, enjoy your date.”

“He’s cute. He’s really nice.”

“He was really nice to you,” Mayes approved. “He seems like a gentleman.”

“That’s what I want.”

“It’s what you deserve. Just see how it goes.”

“Yeah. I’m not committing to anything, I just want to see how it goes.”

“Vibe it out.”

“I’ve got to have an evening off revising, Mayes. I’m not gonna let myself revise when I get back.”

“No, you just go to sleep and you have a good night’s rest. We also deserve that.”

They enjoyed their tea, chatting a bit more about dates and the exciting fact that Sasu would be coming in a week for the ball.

  
  


Icarus led Damen through the streets to the temple to Kord.

They walked in silence for a bit until Damen spoke. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess that’s a relative question.”

“No, I’m fine. I’m great, I’m always great.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” Icarus smiled with a bit of effort. “Gotta be.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s a tough thing, huh.”

“Kind of.”

“You know… I don’t know, this isn’t really my place to talk about this with you, but…” Damen took a long breath. “We don’t have to… let our past dictate the people that we continue to be when we grow up. You know? And people make mistakes, and… maybe you hold that against the people in your past, maybe they didn’t mean it as a mistake, maybe they were intentionally not good to you, I don’t know, but… it’s better to let it go, and forgive people for your sake, than it is to hold a grudge. ‘Cuz if you hold a grudge, you’re the one suffering. Not them. You know?”

“I guess. I guess I’ve just been… I’ve been stationary, in this city, since I arrived, but I’ve still always felt like I’m running from it? Always watching my back, you know?”

“Yeah, I know the feeling. Then, perhaps it is time to stop running. Turn around and face it.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re my friend, you know? And… if you need help with any of it, I’ll be right there.”

“Yeah. Thanks. Same goes to you.”

“Yeah. The three of you are already guessing I got myself mixed up in some messy business…”

Icarus shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, fighting in an underground ring for Kondou is kind of messy.”

“...Kind of. Kind of…”

“Yeah, we found your name in a load of his paperwork.”

Damen frowned at the pavement. “Wasn’t a good time in my life.”

“No.”

“And… still catches up with me sometimes. But mostly, it should be done. It should be over. When you three and Orion said you were going down there, you scared the hell out of me, you know?”

There was another beat of silence. “Tell me something good,” Damen prompted. “That you like. A memory that you like, about yourself.”

Icarus genuinely floundered for a moment. Ten seconds passed, then twenty. “Um… I, um… I healed Lorakai, when he was hurt in the army.”

“There you go, that’s something.”

“Yeah, helped him recuperate when he came to one of the temples. That’s how I met him.”

“Nothing before that, huh?”

“...No.”

Damen threw an arm around his shoulders, squeezing him into a side hug. “Gonna be better from here on out, I promise.”

“Yeah, I know. Already is with those two, and… only ever trusted Lorakai, before recently.”

“I can see that. And… how are you feeling about this Kord business? I feel like I gotta ask, you’re the religion guy, I’m a religious guy…”

Icarus nodded, laughing a bit with the remaining shock. “Yeah… that was really cool! Like, everything aside… Wow, right?”

“I mean, if Maglubiyet came down and spoke to me, and gave me a message, something to do,” Damen grinned, “I’d be all over that. I would just throw everything I was doing out the window.”

“Yeah, I kind of really want to do that. Wow…”

“I know not everybody is big on their faith, but, my God changed my life.”

“Mine too.”

“So yeah, you’re gonna… chase the sun. And find freedom.”

“Gotta find the green light first. The green flash. Have you ever heard that story?”

“A couple of times, I think.”

“When the sun sets across the horizon on the ocean,” Icarus repeated, “There’s a green flash.”

“Maybe focus on finishing school,” Damen teased.

“Heh, yeah.”

“Because you’ve got your third task coming up soon.”

“That’s a whole thing… Kind of scared about that too, might as well open up about all that, too. Freaking out about what to do after, after I finish.”

“Well, I mean, it feels like you might not have to think about it too much, ‘cuz Lady Kord is gonna come along and give you purpose. So, what’s there to be scared of, right? Maglubiyet wanted me to be the best gladiator in all of Erran.”

“And here you are,” Icarus smiled.

“Yeah. If you did want to try out for the arena, we do have tryouts coming up.”

“Really?”

“I could give you a recommendation. I’ve seen you fight. I mean, half of Erran has seen you fight.”

“Yeah, we gave everyone a free show,” Icarus chuckled.

“Exactly. And you should be paid for that. I could give Pešek a word, see if he’ll be your gladiator patron.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Most patrons have at least two or three gladiators, he just has me, so… he’d be open to it.”

“Alright, let me think about it.”

The pair kept walking for a moment until Icarus grinned with realization. “You said Pešek.”

“Well yeah.”

“You were fucking with Pandora, weren’t you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Lord Pešek, that’s what I was saying the whole time.”

Icarus laughed.

They arrived at the temple steps. Heading inside, they spoke to the staff, and had a High Priestess of Kord sent hurriedly back to the house where Helena was waiting. Icarus waited at the altar, offering thanks to Kord. Damen stood against a pillar with his arms crossed. He was respectful, but Kord wasn’t his god. They waited around for a while, but the Priestess wasn’t sure she could do anything, though she was fascinated by the story.

Despite all this, Helena seemed content. She didn’t share the book with the Priestess, tucking it away, and she told the pair that she would be in touch if anything else happened.

  
  


After a few hours, the trio met once again on the steps of Delphos Academy in the late afternoon.

“Hey Icarus!” Mayes waved.

Icarus walked casually up the steps to meet them. “Hey.”

Mayes immediately dumped a pouch of gold in his hand.

Icarus stared at it for a moment. “Why don’t more people say hi like this?”

“I know, it’s great, isn’t it? Mayes grinned. “We turned some shopkeepers against each other, it was great.”

“How’s Helena?” Pandora worried.

“It looks like it might be a permanent change,” Icarus admitted.

“Oh, wow…”

“She seems… okay with that. It is what it is kind of thing, you know?”

“I feel like of all the stuff she’s been studying her entire life, this has to be some kind of…”

“Fate?”

“Yeah, fate calling. She must realize that too.”

“Yeah, she was very calm about it,” Pandora agreed.

“She saw Kord, just like I did. It’s a pretty… pretty final thing, you know, to be like…  _ here’s your calling.” _

“How are you feeling about that?”

“...Kind of jazzed.”

“It’s pretty cool, right?!”

“Pretty fucking cool.”

As they smiled, walking up the steps of the academy, they heard a voice.

“Icarus?!”

Icarus froze, and Lorakai appeared at the top of the doors.

He walked down towards them, a slight limp on his metal leg. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Hey.”

_ “Hey.” _

“I’ve been busy…”

“Mhm. I’ve just been told- ”

“Oh no…”

“About you buying enchanted items on the school’s budget?”

“Yup. That was me.”

“Being in more than 1,000 gold’s worth of debt?”

“Yeah.”

“And what do you have to say for yourself?”

Icarus straightened. “I did what I needed to do. And I didn’t have the money to do it at the time, so I thought I’d be able to pay it off. And I will. I’ve already got 250 of it right in my pocket.”

“Icarus,” Pandora whispered, “Do you want some help?”

“No.”

“We can loan you…”

“No.”

“We can do contracts with you,” Mayes offered, “And you’ll just take all the money from it.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Icarus insisted. “Don’t worry.”

“I mean, I’m sure I owe you money for the spell scroll,” Pandora urged.

“I’ll figure it.”

Lorakai crossed his arms. “Do I want to know why you were spending it?”

“...We told you about the dreams, right? With Damen?”

“Yeah?”

“I got him a necklace so he can contact us whenever he needs, just in case it happens again. Make sure he’s safe.”

Lorakai nodded. “Just… be sensible, okay? And don’t keep things from me?”

Icarus looked at the steps, and took a breath. “I saw Kord.”

“...What?”

“Yeah. These two can attest to it, they were there.”

Mayes and Pandora overlapped their agreement, nodding along on either side of him.

“You saw Kord?” Lorakai repeated.

“He had a vision,” Mayes explained.

Lorakai’s face went much softer. “Are you okay? Are you… shaken?”

“Kind of, at the time, but now I’m… over the moon.”

“Kiddo…” Lorakai brought him in for a hug. As he did, he spoke quietly into his shoulder. “I’m here, you know, to talk about things. Just like I always have been.”

Icarus swallowed. “I know.”

Pandora gave the triton a rather pointed look over Lorakai’s shoulder.

“Anyway,” Lorakai pulled back, “I’ve got some classes to get to, and you have exams starting tomorrow, so…”

“And we have dance class,” Mayes added.

“And you have dance class?”

Icarus frowned. “Wait, what?”

“We have dance class, Icarus,” Mayes repeated. “That’s today. And Pandora can’t come, because she’s got a prior engagement.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I can’t come.” Pandora gave an exaggerated shrug. “Sorry…”

“So we’re going to dance class,” Mayes declared, slapping a hand on Icarus’s shoulder.

“Get to dance class,” Lorakai agreed, “And then I want to hear that you were revising, okay? Final week of exams, head in the game.”

“Uh, okay…” Icarus shook his head, overwhelmed. “Whiplash today.”

“Gotta get to class.” Lorakai gave him a pat on the shoulder, and disappeared.

Icarus watched him go. “Sure. Dance class, I guess.” He turned to Pandora. “Where are you going?”

She shifted a bit. “I’m going out with Adiran!”

“Ah, your date.”

“Just- ! Just two friends going out! To get dinner!”

“You’re feeling it out,” Mayes offered.

“Yeah, testing the waters.”

Icarus gave her a look. “Okay…”

“He’s a very nice man,” Mayes approved.

“He’s a very nice man.”

“And we’re gonna go learn to dance properly.”

“Oh my god,” Icarus rubbed his face, exhausted. “Okay.”

Heading inside, Mayes was flagged down to the front desk, where the woman at the front informed them they had received a letter from Eras Minorix. The name  _ Mayes _ was written on the front in swirly handwriting, with a little heart. Mayes picked it up and quickly tucked it away.

“Is that from Sasu?” Pandora grinned.

“What do you think?”

“Yes!”

  
  


The three of them spent the rest of the afternoon revising. About an hour before the date and the dance class, which both conveniently started at the same time, Pandora got herself ready. She wore a nice, floaty black dress, putting on some of her honey body lotion from the Mykons farms before taking her hair down.

The other two wore their regular uniforms to the dance class, though Mayes was still much too excited to take off the bracers.

They came down from their different houses to meet in the quad. Pandora smelled beautifully of the honey and various florals worked into the lotion.

Icarus put a hand out for her to take, spinning her around. “Look at you! You look incredible.”

“Pandora, you look beautiful,” Mayes agreed.

“Gorgeous.”

“Stunning.”

Pandora blushed, “Thanks, guys…”

“You’re going to have a great time,” Icarus smiled.

“Yeah, it’ll be fun. It’ll be nice…”

“I bet he’s brought you flowers and everything,” Mayes grinned.

“You guys have fun at dance class.”

“We will,” the pair chorused.

“Do you think that you guys are going to partner up?”

They grinned at each other. “Yeah, sure.”

Pandora laughed at the reply. “It will be fun if you guys do that.”

“I can see that I’m the only one here who’s actually excited about dance class,” Mayes teased.

“I don’t mind it,” Icarus explained. “I just… really…”

“It’s been a day, huh?”

“Yeah. Any other day I’d be really pumped, but, you know, today’s a bit draining so far…”

“You don’t have to,” Pandora offered. “If you’re not feeling up to it.”

“No, otherwise I’ll just be sat upstairs, moping.”

“And who else am I going to dance with?” Mayes added.

“Exactly. Can’t let Mayes down,” he joked.

“Exactly,” Pandora smiled. “You’ve got to show everyone up.”

“That’s true,” Mayes agreed. “It could be a competition, and we would win.”

They gave Icarus an encouraging fistbump, but Icarus quickly pulled away at the contact, letting out a yelp of shock. Small sparks flew from the arcane bracers, and Mayes hurriedly lowered their fist.

Icarus shook out his hand. “Do you want us to walk you to the front? Make sure that you don’t get stood alone for ages until he comes?”

“Um… Maybe hang back a little bit,” Pandora advised.

“Sure. Go be cool.”

They walked together to the front building. After Pandora went through the doors, the others counted ten paces before heading inside. They hung by the front desk, trying their best not to look suspicious. As Adrian came up the front steps, they were pretty confident that he hadn’t seen them.

He did, however, see Pandora.

Adrian was wearing a beautiful green silk shirt embroidered with geometric patterns, flowing loose around his upper body but tucked into tight breeches with long boots.

Stepping up, he offered her a white lily.

From the side, Mayes pointed over, whispering to Icarus. “I knew it.”

“Hi,” Pandora blushed.

“Hi,” he smiled back. “You look incredible.”

“Thanks. Thank you very much for the flower.”

He took her hand and kissed it. “Are you ready to go?”

“Sure.”

Adrian glanced around, looking for the others, but he didn’t spot them.

“Then shall we?” He offered an arm.

She looped her arm with his. “We shall.”

She put the lily in her hair, and the pair disappeared back down the steps of Delphos into the sconce lit streets.

The other two watched them go.

Mayes tilted their head. “If he hurts her…”

“I’ll kill him,” Icarus finished.

“Agreed.”

“No, we castrate him,” Icarus revised.

“That’s a lot, but… anything for Pandora.”

“Anything for Pandora.”

Just then, Cenric, the small half-elf who had offered them dance class sign ups, came running over. “Hi!”

“Hey.”

“Are we still waiting on Pandora?”

“Oh, Pandora can’t make it,” Icarus apologized. “Unfortunately, she didn’t realize that she double booked herself.”

“That’s okay…”

“We’re still here!”

“Yeah, no, I’m looking forward to it! It’s gonna be good. Please, come this way…”

“Sure.”

He led them down the halls to one of the Academy’s indoor training rooms, which had been completely cleared and designated for the dance class. Both Mayes and Icarus knew Professor Bagoan, the dance teacher, as he also taught footwork lessons for their martial weaponry classes.

The professor had golden brown skin, black hair, and thick eyelashes and eyebrows that almost met in the middle. He had dark eyes and a dancer’s build with some curves, wearing modest, gold-inked clothing. He had a long sash around his waist and a beautiful curved dagger slid through it. He had a very pretty face that was only just starting to age, with a few fine lines around his eyes. He was quite a reserved and dignified man, never speaking unnecessarily, and very observant, standing on ceremony at one end of the hall.

He greeted them as they came in with a small wave.

Mayes returned the wave. “Evening, Professor.”

“Evening,” he nodded.

“Evening,” Icarus returned.

Professor Bagoan gave him the same nod. “Evening.”

Inside the room were quite a few young students, including Cenric, the second year volcano genasi Atalia from Virtus, and the third year high elf Epmithious from Callidus.

Icarus also recognized a first year Virtus student named Mirella, a 5’8” water genasi with pale blue skin and white green eyes. She had long azure hair and a very gentle expression on her dimpled face.

Mayes recognized another Callidus student, a first year elf named Lucian. He was 5’4”, broad and muscled, with swamp green eyes and messy, curly dirty blonde hair. Lucian had a round face and round eyes with a button nose, missing the top pointed part of one ear. Despite how they looked, they were quite intimidating, with a blank and bored expression on their face.

Another human student from Imperatoria stood at one side, speaking to Atalia. They learned that her name was Helene. About average height and on the chubbier side of curvy, she had a round face and chin length brown hair that was tied up and away from her green eyes. She looked fairly harmless, seemingly cheerful and bubbly.

A few more students gathered around for the class. Mayes waved at the few people they knew, making small talk with Ep and Atalia. After a few minutes, Professor Bagoan turned around to address them all.

“Right. Is everybody ready?”

General agreement came from the crowd.

“Before we begin, does anyone have any previous dance experience?”

Icarus put his hand up, as did a few others.

“That’s good, that’s good. And does anybody have anticipated partners for next week’s ball?”

Mayes raised their hand along with half the other students.

“That’s good, very exciting. I’ll be paying extra special attention to you. Right, to begin, we’re going to just start with some simple steps. So I want you to pair up- ”

Mayes and Icarus instantly stepped closer. Some of the other students looked over at them, whispering.

_ “Is that…?” _

_ “Those are the students who saved Damianos!” _

_ “Oh my god, they saved Damianos?” _

_ “Do you think we should get autographs?” _

As the first years giggled, Icarus pulled his partner closer, pointing at the wall. “See the brickwork in this room?”

_ “Do you think they could introduce us to Damianos?” _

Mayes did their best to carry on with the forced conversation. “People don’t use good enough marble these days.”

“No, no,” Icarus agreed. “Not like they used to.”

“They really don’t.”

The water genasi first year looked over at them, seeming very shy but quite excited to be in the same class as them.

Icarus waved. “Hey.”

“Hi! Wow…”

Professor Bagoan cleared his throat. “In your pairs, please find a space in the training room.”

Icarus and Mayes hid in a corner, and Bagoan began to demonstrate the steps to the first dance. Bagoan looked incredibly pleased at how quickly Icarus picked it up. “I’m very, very impressed with that, Mr. Pelayo. If you would like to show your partner what it is that they’re not quite getting right, with the steps?”

“I can do that,” Icarus agreed, turning back to Mayes. “Move more with your arms than your hips, and then… do this… yeah.”

“Okay… isn’t it about the footwork?”

“Well yeah, but you need to have this as well,” Icarus explained, gesturing to all of himself.

Mayes gave a slow nod. “Uh huh…”

“We’ll get this, we’ll get this. I’ll show you.”

“Thanks.”

Helene and Atalia were trying to get the steps together, but with little success. The first years had paired up, mostly giggling to themselves. Cenric was taking the class very seriously, pairing up with the shy water genasi.

Icarus was getting it very easily, but Mayes was still stepping on their feet.

“Sorry!”

“It’s okay.”

Bagoan came hurriedly over. “Stop, stop! Start again.”

Icarus gave an obedient nod. “Yes.”

They went again for the same result.

Bagon pinched the bridge of their nose, tucking his long, straight hair back over one shoulder before clapping twice. “Again.”

“Can I lead this time?” Mayes asked.

Icarus gave a nod. “Yeah.”

“Okay…”

They tried again. Mayes was slightly better in the leading position.

Bagoan moved to the next dance. This one was faster, but the footwork was a bit closer to something Mayes was used to from their martial classes. Bagoan clapped along to the beat. He was wearing bracelets with bells on them, and as he demonstrated the moves, he sang along to create the music.

Lucian, who was dancing with Mirella, was also doing an impressive job.

Bagoan called over to them with pride. “That’s it, absolutely wonderful!”

Mirella, meanwhile, was stumbling over herself until she tumbled, knocking them both to the ground. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

Bagoan addressed the rest of the class. “You seem to be getting those steps, so, let’s go into another practice performance.”

Mayes and Icarus got into the flow of the dance, doing rather well this time.

“Very good!” Bagoan called. “Very good, I’m very impressed.”

Bagoan had some of the students leave the floor to make room for Mayes, Icarus, Atalia, and Ep.

“Right, this next dance involves swapping partners. So, I want you four in the middle…”

He demonstrated a few more moves. From their shared Callidus classes, Mayes and Ep managed pretty well, spinning each other around before Ep lifted Mayes at the end. Both Atalia and Icarus tried to lead, butting heads like fire and water as they stepped on each other’s feet.

For the first time, Bagaon looked disappointed in Icarus. “Right, practice with the four of you,” he instructed, setting up other groups throughout the room.

Though Mayes missed some of the different maneuvers, Ep managed to carry them through it. This time, Atalia followed Icarus’s lead, and didn’t fumble quite as much.

Bagaon shook his bells. “You’re doing wonderfully, Icarus! Alright, we’re moving on to the second to last dance...”

At this point, they had been in the class for over an hour. They were pouring with sweat, and some of the first years had to sit out. Helene was really sticking at it, dancing with Cenric now, both trying their best to push through to the end.

Inspired by Bagoan, Icarus did his best to continue the performance as Mayes danced along. Bagoan looked very impressed with the pair of them. They were doing the best in the class so far, though Cenric was close behind, seemingly more interested in the dancing than any other academic part of Delphos.

“And for our final one,” Bagaon announced, “This is our hardest dance, so we’ll keep just our best students up. Are you ready? This is a dance for great warriors. I used to do this dance to inspire warriors at battle, when I was still in the army. We’ll start at a bow…”

He led them through the steps. Bagoan’s dark eyes lit up watching Icarus dance, and he reached out a hand. “Dance with me.”

The rest of the students backed around the walls as Icarus danced with the Professor. Helene, Atalia, and Cenric clapped for them. “Come on, Icarus!” one shouted.

Icarus felt the pressure of the room full of students watching him dance, but he followed the steps near perfectly, and the pair of them put on quite the performance.

Afterwards, Bagaon put a hand on his chest, blinking away emotion as he looked off. “I haven’t seen anyone dance that dance like that since my last lover in the war.”

At that, Mayes gave Icarus a bewildered look.

Professor Bagoan looked very contended until the reserved nature of his personality returned. “It was very good, everyone.”

Icarus bowed, and Bagoan bowed back.

“What a class,” Bagoan chuckled. He went around giving pointers to everyone as they left before taking off his gold sash and handing it to Icarus, and turning to Mayes. “You still have some learning to do, but I believe that you’ll be ready if you practice before the ball.”

“I’ll get there,” Mayes nodded, glancing to Icarus. “Please?”

“Yeah,” Icarus chuckled.

Bagoan sent them on their way into the night. There was a buzzing, happy atmosphere as everyone flooded out of the class.

They stepped out into the quad under the stars. Icarus reached for Mayes’ hand, and danced them across the quad before they parted for their separate dorms.

  
  


Pandora’s date ran relatively smoothly through the evening. They were both a bit awkward at first, but after ten minutes or so at their table in the taverna, sitting out on the terrace overlooking the water, the conversation started to flow quite easily. They talked passionately about studying the arcane and wizardry. Pandora was so at ease with him that she began talking about her family, getting to Delphos, and her sisters, spilling things she normally wouldn’t discuss so freely. But Adrian didn’t push, listening intently throughout.

When he walked her back, he held her arm. Eventually, they reached the front steps.

“I had a really, really wonderful time,” he smiled.

“Yeah, I had a great time as well,” Pandora blushed. “Sorry if I like, talked your ear off. I’m just thinking now, I haven’t stopped talking for hours.”

“I love listening to you. I could listen to you talk all day.”

She fidgeted in place, grinning at the floor. “It was really nice spending the evening with you.”

“I’d like to do it again.”

“...Yeah, that would… that would be nice…”

“If you’d be interested in, I don’t know… doing it regularly?”

“Yeah, we can… we can do that.”

“That would make me very happy.”

“This was very nice. Thank you for a wonderful evening.”

“And you. Good luck with your exams, but I’m very confident after everything you talked about that you’re going to do incredibly.”

“I’m going to be busy for the next little bit,” Pandora apologized, “But maybe, like, once it’s all out of the way, maybe we can do this again sometime.”

“That would be nice. And maybe I’ll message you.”

She giggled. “Okay…”

“Well… goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

“I hope you sleep well.”

“You too.”

He leaned in, and kissed her on the cheek. Pandora blushed furiously. Adrian stroked his fingers down her jaw, and then kissed her properly.

He winked, and disappeared off down the road. Pandora stared off after him in surprise. Smiling to herself, she headed back to her dormitory. Luckily, there weren’t many people about at this time of night to see her blush as she rushed back.

As she got back to her room, she heard Adrian’s voice in her head.  _ “Great night. So flustered I forgot to ask if you’d be my girlfriend? ...No pressure.” _

Pandora was so taken aback, she waited a few minutes before replying, laying back on her bed with Puck flying around.

“What do I do, buddy?”

The bird twittered back and forth in conversation with her.

“Really…? I know… I know, he’s such a gentleman.”

She returned his message.  _ “I was just as flustered. I don’t want to rush into anything… but… I can live with that. …Boyfriend.” _

She was filled with a warm and fuzzy feeling. Puck landed on her tail as it flicked around happily.

After a short while, she fell asleep. 

Once again, she was completely restless with dreams of her mother.

  
  


She found herself wandering through the gardens of the Imperata’s palace, aimless and curious, until she spotted her mother with the Imperata herself. Hurrying through the grand corridors and towering archways, Pandora followed after, desperately trying to catch snippets of her conversation, but struggling to understand any of the words. It was as if the dream was making her listen underwater.

Suddenly, she found herself locked out, a heavy door closing between her and her mother. She banged her fists heavily on the door, feeling a desperate sense of urgency to get inside as the corridor began to grow colder and colder. Screaming out for her mother’s attention, ice started to form on her fingertips, growing up her arms and legs until it froze her in place.

“Mom…?”

The palace started to crumble around her, dispersing like shattering ice until she was staring into a pair of huge black eyes before her, and a wicked smile.

_ “Pandora…” _

She woke up.

  
  


Pandora jolted from her bed, gasping and holding her head. “Oh, this is so frustrating…”

It was nearly three in the morning. She grabbed a bit of parchment, writing down everything she could remember from the dream. Glancing out the window, the bright moon was on its way to being full in half a week's time.

“Dangit…”

She still felt just a bit too cold for Erran. Pulling the blankets up closer, she wrapped herself up. Puck nestled down in the crook of her shoulder, and she fell back into sleep.

  
  


All three of them woke up early in the morning for their  _ Psychology of Body Language _ Exam. They raced down to the huge exam halls. Having stuffed some breakfast in their faces, Mayes and Pandora were bleary eyed, cramming in books as they headed for the exam.

They saw Veltash down there, waiting to go into the room along with Alcyone and Arachne, all queueing outside for the exam.

Icarus jogged down, looking much more cheerful than anybody else. “Morning!”

Pandora and Mayes grumbled back.

“How’s everyone doing?”

“Sleepy,” the pair groaned.

“Do some squats, it’ll wake you up!”

“No.”

“Your loss.”

Icarus did some squats. Everyone stared at him.

  
  


The three of them spent the morning in their exam, finishing around 11:00. Mayes came out of it feeling completely confident, as they had done plenty of studying. Icarus felt pretty good as well, but Pandora was absolutely exhausted.

“Oh, I screwed that one up so bad!” Pandora moaned.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Icarus assured her.

“Yeah,” Mayes encouraged. “You always do great.”

“No, the essay questions threw me right off,” she worried. “And I realized like two hours in that I should have written about something else, and ugh! I’m so mad.”

“I hate when that happens,” Icarus sympathized.

She pointed a finger at Mayes. “That’s what comes of not revising the night before! I’m never doing that again.”

“Pandora, you had a nice night last night,” Mayes countered.

“Did you?” Icarus grinned. “Did you have a nice night? How was it?”

“...It was really nice.”

“Of course it was,” Mayes chuckled.

“But I had a really bad night’s sleep after that. I guess the stress just came back.”

“Oh, that sucks. Yeah, probably the stress of knowing this was coming,” Icarus guessed. “But how did the date go? What happened?”

“Oh, it was really nice, we just… went for dinner, and then had a walk by the water, and came back, and… um… I guess we’re kind of a thing now, I guess? We’re taking it slowly though! But, like, he asked me to be his girlfriend…”

Mayes and Icarus looked at her expectantly.

“And I said yes, but, take it slow! I’ve got all of this exam stuff to deal with first. After school I can deal with… having… a boyfriend.”

“Pandora, I’m so happy for you through,” Icarus beamed. “Well, congratulations!”

“Congratulations,” Mayes echoed.

She giggled. “Thanks…”

“Speaking of, I have a letter I need to reply to at some point…”

  
  


Pandora and Mayes had the afternoon free, but Icarus had his  _ History of Warfare _ Exam right away.

The exam was going to heavily cover the War of the Three Crowns. Icarus was quite passionate about the subject, writing essays throughout the exam.

The war began in the year 152, when the high elves appeared on the Glittering Shore in the north of Caldera, founding Elenithil. When these high elves, who called themselves the Elhenith, set about across the north of Caldera, they began claiming territory everywhere as their own. Though met at first with little to no opposition, the road from the Underdark soon opened up into what later became Shadebourne. Innumerable drow and dwarves and gnomes and others emerged from the Underdark, naming themselves the Devosha. War commenced as the Devosha fought their way out onto the above-ground continent, and refused to give up the land they were taking to the elves.

In 205, the hobgoblins, having recently arrived in the southwestern corner of Erran, rapidly expanded beyond their first city.

Icarus continued to write.  _ They called it Erran, which means “first landing.” _

The Errani forces were rigorously trained and countless in number, sweeping across central and northern Caldera, clashing with the two other armies. During  _ The Triumph of the Copper Hills, _ a battle Icarus had seen recreated by the gladiators in the arena, the Devosha armies and Elhenith troops were devastated and slaughtered by the Errani Legions, who took masses of ground.

This was then followed by the Devosha ambushing hundreds of Errani Legionnaires in the Great Marlborough Woods in 214. Not one Legionnaire made it out alive.

The elven fleets sailed south from Bronze Harbour in 225, laying siege to Erran by sea, and cutting off trade routes. Errani engineers discovered a network of caverns below the surface, connecting the expansive Underdark, where they found several smaller gateways to the underground continent. Erran laid siege to them there, and for the next sixty years, Maglubiyet’s Legions moved slowly across the continent, fortifying wherever they went. They built roads, viaducts, and strongholds, cementing their territory and keeping their armies well stocked.

The troops of Elenithil and Shadebourne agreed on a shaky truce, turning against the Errani Legions. Finally, in 339,  _ The Battle of Mons Aurum _ commenced _. _ Elhenith and Devosha came together to tackle the brunt of Errani, stopping them in their tracks before the troops reached the mountain fortress of Shadebourne. However, both sides planned to turn on each other the second they pushed back the Errani Legions. Too soon did both sides reveal their plans, and the slopes of Mons Aurom were soaked red in blood in a desperate three way fight between all combatants. This battle lasted days, and ultimately, each force retreated, shattered.

In 340, the war was declared over in a stalemate.

Shortly after that, the city states were established, declaring that nobody was allowed to claim all of Caldera.

  
  


Icarus came out of the exam feeling very good about himself. The exams continued for the next two days. Mayes and Pandora finished up with theirs, and the three of them had a day off before Icarus had one final exam the following day. Mayes read and replied to Sasu’s letter, and sent one off for Michio as well.

On the morning of their day off, the eleventh of Nevreyn, Orion arrived in his disguise as the pale, silver haired elf on the steps of Delphos Academy.

Pandora ran up to hug Orion. “Hi!”

“Hey!” he grinned, picking her up properly. “How’s it going?”

“How are you?”

“I’m good, I’m good…”

“We’ve just been getting through exams,” Mayes explained.

“Yeah? You mostly done?”

“I’ve got one more tomorrow,” Icarus replied. “I think you guys are done?”

“Yeah,” Mayes nodded, “But we’ve still got the big one.”

“The big one,” Pandora gulped.

“How do you think it went?” Orion asked.

“Great,” Mayes and Icarus chorused.

Pandora shook her head. “Don’t even ask…”

“You always do great,” Icarus assured her.

“I’m sure you’re gonna do great,” Orion agreed.

The trio noticed that Orion seemed a bit fidgety this morning. He had squeezed Pandora just a bit too tightly, and he was now wringing his hands, folding his arms over his chest.

“Shall we make a move?” Icarus prompted.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah? Do you want to go somewhere private for a minute?”

“That would be great.”

He started leading them towards the large gate to exit the city. Orion payed for them to hop on a cart, and they headed down. Interestingly, they hadn’t seen Eurylos around for a while.

Pandora turned to Orion as they were on the cart. “You okay? You seem a little bit tense…”

“I’m alright, just… seeing these people, it’s been awhile. But it’s fine.”

“Thank you for doing this,” Icarus offered. “I’m sorry it’s put you in a weird place.”

“You know what, I had to face the past eventually, you know?”

Icarus looked away.

“You good on the information that we got about Kondou? You know, in case they ask for something in return?”

“Can do.” Icarus took out the paperwork he stole. “I’ve got these, so…”

Pandora looked down at the stack. “I’m sure that’s enough.”

“Yeah, that should be good,” Orion agreed.

They reached the huge gates to exit the city.

Orion stopped the cart. “We’re good, we’ll walk from here.”

From there, they exited, heading west around the city walls for a short while. Orion made small talk with them about their exams, but he didn’t seem to be listening properly. His disguise began to fade over time, and he waved a hand to renew it.

They reached a stretch of open field, all of the crops pulled up already by this time of year.

He stood there, waiting. “I’m sure they won’t be long.”

“Feeling nervous?” Mayes guessed.

“...Yeah, yeah.”

“Been awhile since you’ve seen these people?”

“I don’t know who they’re sending, so, um…”

“Is there anyone you’d rather not see?” Pandora asked. “If you had a choice?”

“...My dad.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, that would be… optimal.”

“Didn’t realize that your dad was part of the group.”

“My whole family, actually. So, could be my dad, or my mom, or either of my siblings…”

“Do they know that you’re going to be here?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did tell them.”

Pandora took his hand, squeezing it. He quickly wrapped his fingers between hers, holding tightly. His tail wrapped around hers, though it was invisible in his current disguise.

“I told you before, that there was just… an incident,” Orion mumbled.

“Something like that,” Mayes nodded.

“You didn’t really give much detail,” Pandora explained. “But you don't have to if you don’t want to.”

He sighed. “Just… I didn’t really speak to them, afterwards, and… it wasn’t their fault, really, but… they could have been nicer about it, and I could have been better about it, and it’s just… one of those things, you know. They’re good people, I promise.”

Icarus stared up at Orion for a moment. “...What happened?”

“...We were on a contract. My dad, and one of the other older members of the Brotherhood, and my brother. We were… fighting with a Fiend. And… I…” he looked off, biting his lip and swallowing hard. “I died.”

There was a bit of a pause as the trio let that sink in.

“And, my dad wouldn’t let that go, so he had me… resuscitated, with magic.”

Pandora narrowed her eyes a bit. “What kind of magic?”

“...The only kind of magic they had available to them at the time. Brought me back… in a different body.”

“...Oh…”

“I was reincarnated as… this.”

“Oh, wow…”

“...Yeah.”

Icarus gave a solemn nod. “Well, it’s probably no consolation, but I for one am glad that you’re alive. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m glad we got to meet you,” Mayes agreed.

“Yeah. You’re a good friend,” Icarus declared.

Orion glanced up at them. “And you three.”

“I’m sorry that complicated things for you,” Mayes offered.

Orion swallowed again. “They’re all elves. All of them.”

“You were an elf?” Icarus guessed.

“Mhm.”

Mayes gave the disguise another look. “Is this… who you used to be?”

“...Mhm. I was 93 when I died.”

“Oh, shit,” Icarus muttered.

“So, pretty young, really. Centuries ahead of me,” he shook his head, trying to keep his voice steady. “I don’t know how long I have now, I don’t know if lifespan resets, or whether I’ve got ten years left, you know?”

“That’s shit.”

“Yeah.”

Icarus straightened. “But do you know what? You’re fucking alive. So, fuck that. Do what you need, and just… don’t worry about when you  _ might _ die, because everyone  _ might _ die tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“And I know it sucks, that  _ really _ sucks. You just said you need to move on from the past… it’s something I need to do too, so, I know what that feels like.”

“...I’ve been trying to make the most of it, you know?”

“I’d say you’ve been doing a pretty good job of that,” Mayes replied. They offered him an awkward side-hug, and Orion wrapped an arm around them. Mayes gave him a pat, and found it quite strange to feel the invisible leathery wings on his back.

Orion looked up. “Alright. I see ‘em.”

Three griffons emerged from the clouds. Silhouetted at first, they flew elegantly, swooping down towards the fields and circling down to the ground before landing a way off.

The three griffons landed. One was about the same size as Orion’s, one smaller, and one much bulkier looking and rugged.

Three members of the Brotherhood approached. One was a pale elf standing about 5’5” with green eyes and long straight silver hair worn up in a high ponytail. She had pointed, delicate features, and quite a sharp expression on her face. As she got closer, they watched her look over Orion in his disguise, tensing up a bit.

Pandora held Orion’s hand very tightly. He squeezed back, but then let go, straightening up to stand quite formally.

Also with them was a six foot brown skinned elf with dark eyes and very curly natural hair, worn braided over one shoulder. They had round features and full lips, and although it was harder to discern age with elves, they were definitely older than the other silver haired elf.

Standing at about 6’4”, a half-orc with elven features approached. With green brown skin and hazel eyes, his shaggy black hair was worn back into a really short half ponytail, with one small tusk sticking up from his lower lip. He had pretty features, slim but muscled shoulders, and a cinched waist. He had a cheeky grin on his face as he walked over.

All three of them wore sleeveless grey suede tunics with elven embroidery, and woolen trousers. They had golden pauldrons on their shoulders with an elven leaf design, and high collared leather cowls.

Orion took a breath, and addressed them. “Thank you for coming.”

The other silver haired elf stepped forward. “Ehrendil. You don’t look like you’ve changed a day.”

Orion gave a dark chuckle. “Yeah.”

He dropped the disguise.

She looked him over again. “That’s better. That’s my brother.”

Orion shrugged. “I guess, kind of.”

The brown skinned elf stepped forwards. “I’m Farran.”

“Hi,” Icarus greeted. “Icarus.”

“Mayes,” Mayes followed.

Pandora gave a polite nod. “Pandora.”

Farran motioned to the silver haired elf, and then the half-orc. “This is Amaryll, and Yusuf. And as we understand it from Orion, you might have some information for us. You found our, unfortunately, deceased rider.”

“We did,” Icarus replied.

“And potentially, some people of the smuggler’s ring that took him down,” Mayes added.

The elf nodded. “And what is it that you want in return?”

“Information,” Icarus replied. “About the hit that he was carrying.”

“Hm. We’ll hear you out,” the elf decided. “So what can you tell us, about the people who killed our person?”

“They work for a man named Kondou, who operates underneath Erran,” Mayes explained.

“Okay…”

“And potentially, there’s some connection to some of the Councilors.”

“Kondou… not familiar with the name.”

“We can give you paperwork,” Icarus offered. “Information about what he’s been doing, lists...”

“That would be helpful.”

“Not going to give without receiving something, though.”

“Of course not. We don’t operate like that. Yusuf?”

The elf snapped at the half-orc, who started making notes on what they had said.

“So, the contract that our friend was carrying when he was struck down,” Farran began, “I believe it was an assasination. What would you like to know about it?”

Icarus responded immediately. “Who took it out, why, and what Niklaus has done.”

Farran thought for a moment, and then responded. “The name of the person who took out the contract was Haetus Virato. He’s a merchant sailor to the north, in a village near Marlborough. Virato is notorious for his temper, and for cutting deals in which he makes a disproportionate amount of profit, but he keeps his business in good clean order, and doesn’t care much for, in his words,  _ double-crossing pirates like Niklaus.” _

Icarus blinked in confusion. “Pirates?”

“His words.”

“Well, he’s a liar.”

“Excuse me?”

“Niklaus isn’t a pirate.”

“So you know him.”

“Yeah, used to,” he admitted.

“And he’s not a pirate?”

Icarus shook his head.

Farran glanced back at Orion. “I don’t know whether Ehrendil has explained to you all, but we don’t carry out assassinations unless we can prove that the person is deserving of it. So if you know more, we’d be very very interested in hearing about it.”

“...What’s he done that made it worth it to take him out, then? On your side of things?”

“Supposedly, Niklaus’s ship intercepted one of Virato’s, killing a number of his men, raiding his cargo of weaponry and armour. Losing Virato’s sailors, and thousands of gold in profit, which I think he was more interested in.”

Pandora leaned in to whisper to Icarus. “It’s been a long time since you knew him, Icarus. A lot could have happened.”

“You have a whole new life now,” Mayes added. “Anything could change.”

Icarus let out a breath, rubbing his forehead.

“The contract was taken out two days prior to coming across our dead rider,” Farran continued. “Ardreth had been on his way back to our mountain fortress. The contract was taken out on the 19th of Amakil. We haven’t pursued anything, we haven’t fulfilled it, as we have been yet to locate Niklaus.”

“Does your organization have any idea where he was?” Pandora asked. “Or even a vague idea?”

“We were told by Virato to scour the oceans, so unfortunately, that’s quite a vast area to search.”

“So, did only the one rider have this contract, or if you have riders elsewhere, were there multiple looking in all the places where he could have been on the ocean?”

“Well, the contract was signed and sealed, and we hadn’t yet assigned anyone to it.”

“Assign me,” Icarus urged.

“You’re not one of the Brotherhood.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want one of you just killing him for no reason. This is… personal to me.”

“And this is a business contract assigned to us,” the elf countered. “We are willing to discuss, but we can’t simply assign you to it.”

“Then I’ll do what I need to to get it,” Icarus insisted. “I don’t want you to just give it to someone else, I want to get the truth out of this myself.”

Farran looked to be considering it.

Next to him, Orion shifted and cleared his throat. “I’ll take it.”

“Orion,” Pandora muttered, warning.

He shrugged. “I’ll take the contract.”

Both Amaryll and Farran looked over in surprise.

“I thought you were absolutely done with everything, Ehrendil,” Farran replied.

“I  _ was… _ until… something that mattered to me came up.”

“...Very well. We’ll have to have you and Icarus visit Arx Volatus, and we’ll go over this properly, with your father.”

Orion pursued his lips. “Sure. We can do that, right?”

“Agreed,” Icarus nodded. “Here…” he opened his satchel, handing over the paperwork.

Yusuf gave him a big grin as he took it. “Thanks, man.”

“No worries.”

Yusuf shot him another cheeky smile.

“Well, I suppose we can call that settled then,” Farran declared.

“Thank you.”

“Ehrendil will arrange your visit, and we can go over it further then.”

Icarus offered out a hand, and Farran took it in their manicured fingers to shake.

Amaryll looked Orion up and down. “You look like you’re doing well for yourself.”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “I’ve… I’ve been okay.”

“You’re not very subtle, by the way. Everybody has heard about the gladiator in Erran, with the griffon. Dad’s pissed.”

“Well I wasn’t just gonna leave Spiro behind!”

“No, but, you didn’t have to make a huge fuss of it.”

“If anything, I’d say that it was worth it,” Icarus defended. “He’s, like you said, real well for himself. Famous in these parts.”

“He’s well loved in these parts,” Pandora agreed.

“He’s really cool,” Mayes declared. “Just in general.”

Amaryll smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. I guess I’ll look forward to seeing you at home.”

Orion cringed. “Yeah, I guess so… Thanks for coming out.”

“Thank you for the information.”

“What do you plan to do about Kondou?” Pandora wondered. “If anything? He killed one of your men after all.”

“Tried to steal a griffon,” Icarus added. “So it might happen again.”

“That’s the thing that worries me,” Farran replied, tapping their chin. “We can’t just simply leave it. If anything, an operation like that happening anywhere in this area, it should be stopped. Griffons or otherwise.”

“Yeah,” Yusuf crossed his arms. “Personally, I grew up on a farm, and we had some poachers come and steal some of our catoblepas, so…”

“We rescued one of those from them!” Mayes recalled.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, the big, big cow thing.”

“Really big,” Pandora echoed.

“Big cow thing,” Yusuf nodded. “Super cute, very smelly.”

“Yeah, that’s the one. We gave it to the woman at the stables…”

“But we don’t know who she gave it to,” Mayes finished.

“Well I don’t imagine this many years later that it’s going to be one of mine,” Yusuf mused, “But I am definitely interested.”

“If you’re in the market,” Icarus laughed.

“If I’m in the market…”

“There’s a catoblepas at the stables,” Pandora repeated.

Yusuf chuckled. “Sure, well, I am definitely invested in helping with this.”

“It’s free catoblepas,” Mayes grinned.

Yusuf started laughing, and Farran smacked him upside the head, reaching up slightly for how tall the half-orc was.

“Okay,” Yusuf waved the other elf off, growing serious again. “If anything, I’m interested in getting involved in stopping this. Because I’m not a fan of poachers. So, we’ll see what the big boss says, and if nothing else, we’ll look into it personally.”

“If you do,” Pandora needled, “Could you let us know? Because… I feel like we are kind of… involved now.”

“Yeah,” Mayes sighed.

“You three get yourselves in some sort of trouble?” he guessed.

“Well, I mean, to get that information, we kind of had to go through the base, so…”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, we’re kind of…” Icarus grimaced, trailing off.

“Wanted people?”

“Probably,” Mayes admitted.

“Definitely,” Icarus followed.

“Great.”

Farran raised a brow at Orion. “And you, Ehrendil?”

Orion looked away. “...Maybe. I mean, I was disguised.”

“Very well.”

“We could draw you up a map or something,” Pandora offered. “Give you a better idea of the layout.”

“Or about the secret entrances,” Mayes added.

“That would be useful,” Farran nodded. “I can see that you three are quite skilled. Ehrendil picks his friends well.”

Pandora smiled over to Orion. “He’s a good friend.”

“Yeah, he’s a real good friend,” Icarus echoed.

Farran glanced over them once more. “Well, we don’t want to keep you for too long. Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“I’m sure we’ll see you again, at some point soon.”

“Thank you.”

Immediately, Farran bowed to them, said goodbye, and turned back to the griffons. The griffons were playing with each other, snapping at each other’s feathers.

Amaryll looked back to Orion. “It will be good to have you home again.”

Orion fidgeted a bit. “Yeah, I suppose. I won’t be staying. Just this one contract, okay?”

“...Yeah. And just, don't mind what dad says, okay? He’s funny, but he’s not the be all and end all of everything.”

She hugged him, and he hugged back rather awkwardly.

Stepping back, she waved. “Nice to meet you three!”

“You too,” Icarus smiled.

She smacked Yusuf on the shoulder as she went past. Yusuf grinned at Icarus again. “It’s really good to meet you.”

“You too, we’ll see you again soon.”

“Yes. I will look you up if we’re ever in Erran.”

“And the catoblepas,” Mayes added.

Yusuf leaned forwards with renewed interest. “Yes, the catoblepas! Where did you say it was?”

“With Thekla, at the stables.”

“Thekla?”

“Come on!” Amaryll called.

Yusuf gave a wave back at her, still grinning at the trio. “Well, maybe I’ll be by. Get myself free catoblepas.”

“If you’re in the market,” Icarus chuckled.

“I will see you around again, probably at our fortress. Nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

He winked at Icarus, and went back around to the bigger, rough looking griffon. He jumped on, and the trio watched the griffons turn and run for a hundred yards before launching off in the sky. It looked impossible for them to fly, the griffons seemingly far too heavy for it, but they elegantly took off and disappeared into the clouds.

Orion let out a long breath.

“They seem nice enough,” Mayes offered.

“Yeah.”

Icarus turned to Orion and pulled him into a hug. “Thank you. Thank you, that…thank you.”

Orion put his arms around him. “Of course. I guess I’m walking away from being a gladiator for a short while, huh?”

“Eh, make the others do some work,” Icarus teased. “I’m sure Dames can finally do something now.”

Orion pulled back and gave Icarus a grin. “Dames?”

“...Damen.”

“Mhm.  _ Dames.” _

“Shut up.”

Orion playfully tried to trip him as they walked back towards the city, and Icarus grabbed his tail. The tiefling immediately launched up, flying past them to land fifty yards away.

“Okay,” he waved a hand, and the disguise returned. “Back into the city, one more time.”

“I kind of prefer the Orion we know,” Icarus replied.

“...Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s a cool guy,” Mayes agreed.

“Well, so does the rest of the city. Everybody wants an autograph.”

“Oh no,” Icarus teased. “How hard.”

“It’s a terrible life,” Orion chuckled.

“To be fair,” Mayes interjected, “Those first years wanted our autograph the other night, and I hated it.”

“We still need to do more dance training with you,” Icarus remembered.

“Yes.”

  
  


They headed back to the city, and back through the streets of Erran to Delphos. When they arrived back, saying goodbye to Orion, they were called to Sebaste’s office.

The satyr man was sitting at his desk as usual, adjusting his round glasses. “You three again.”

“Always is,” Icarus chuckled. “Hey.”

“I’m aware that you have one more written exam, Mr. Pelayo, but you also have your third task coming up in two days.”

“In two days?! Oh, okay, great!”

“The big one,” Pandora gulped.

“We’re still together on that though, right?”

“You are,” Sebaste confirmed. “So, for this third task… you are going to head out of the city through one of the viaducts, seeking out a large creature that has nested there. And, for all intents and purposes, slay the beast.”

“Okay,” Mayes nodded.

“Do we know what it is?” Pandora asked.

“I’m afraid we don’t yet,” Sebaste replied. “We just know that several people have gone missing there, amongst other things.”

“Any descriptions from witnesses, or…?”

“Large, someone has mentioned draconic features. I’m afraid there’s not much to go on, because not many people who have gone that way have returned. This is… quite a pressing task, and extremely dangerous, unlike your other two. This is a real world situation, somewhat like a contract, but as you understand it, you will be evaluated on what you carry out. And so for that, as proof of what you have done, Delphos Academy would like to request that you bring back any useable parts of the creature that could be used as potion ingredients, components, that sort of thing. They must be in good condition, to prove how well you have taken down the beast. And, as we recognize the danger, you will be accompanied by an outside party.”

Three heads cocked in unison.

“As we cannot send any one of your mentors on this, lest it unbalance the evaluation… we think you might be quite happy with our choice of outside party.”

Icarus grinned, already forming a guess. “Care to elaborate?”

“You will be carrying out your third task with the assistance of gladiator Damianos Thalasse.”

“Of course,” Mayes chuckled. “Of course we are.”

“So he knew about this when he was with us?” Pandora realized. “When he was talking about- ?”

“Oh is that what- ! Oh, Damen!” Mayes shook their head, still laughing.

“He knew!”

Sebaste smiled. “It’s an agreement reached following what the three of you did for him at the Coliseum, made with his patron. And he will be the one evaluating you, for this part. Please take the rest of the afternoon to prepare, and use, for the last time, your pass from Delphos to buy what you need, and good luck with it. We expect you to set off on the morning of the thirteenth. He’ll meet you outside at 9:00am.”

“Does he know when 9:00am is?” Icarus teased.

Sebaste shook his head with amusement. “It’s when the sundial points a quarter of the way around.”

“I don’t think he’s ever seen that… but sure. Thanks.”

“Thank you, Master Auron,” Mayes followed.

“Of course.”

  
  


They spent the evening shopping. Icarus had an exam the following morning, and the three of them had that afternoon to themselves. On the morning of the thirteenth of Neveryn, they made their way down bright and early in their Delphos uniforms and armour to see Damianos Thalasse standing on the front steps of Delphos Academy, much to the awe of many students and passersby.

“Look at you, waking up early,” Icarus grinned.

He greeted them, and the four of them set off for the third task.

  
  



	22. A Monsterous Task, Episode Twenty-Two

Damen was dressed in his golden chestplate and lion mane’s cape. The tooth necklace Icarus gave him hung over his armour, and he held his helmet under one arm. Behind him was an ox drawn cart with a driver in official city colors.

Some students hung out of their windows, craning their necks to look out at the gladiator, calling his name, but his attention was solely on the three students.

He called out to them as they joined him, grinning and pulling them into a hug, ecstatic to be surprising them with this. “How are you three doing?”

Pandora let out a worried breath. “This is…”

“This is a lot,” Mayes finished.

“Yeah!”

Icarus was beaming. “It's so good to see you though.”

“It is, I’m so glad to have you with us.”

“Of all the people it could be,” Mayes chuckled.

“I’ve known about this for weeks,” Damen admitted. “And it's kind of exciting.”

“You didn’t say anything!” Pandora accused.

Mayes raised a brow. “Is that… at the bar? Is that what you were…?”

“Hmm…” Damen looked away. “Nope.”

“Mhm?”

He chuckled. “Yeah.”

“Bastard.”

“It’s been hard keeping it from you, but, surprise!”

“So do you know any more about what we need to be doing?” Pandora asked. “Or are you as in the dark as we are?”

“I’m as in the dark as you are. I simply have a list of criteria to mark you on.”

“Okay… So, you say you are marking us, but, are you… going to be getting involved as well? Or just… standing back and letting us deal with it?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, they couldn’t keep me from fighting if they wanted to,” Damen grinned. “Are we ready to go?”

“Yeah, we got everything we needed yesterday,” Icarus replied. The day before, Icarus had used the money from the gold hand to pay for three greater healing potions. Pandora grabbed two more regular healing potions, adding it to her school debt, while Mayes bought 50 feet of silver silk rope.

They climbed into the back of the cart. It was a bit nicer than some of the taxi style carts they had taken before, and the driver was polite, ignoring the passengers in the back without listening in on their conversation.

The driver pulled away from the school, students still shouting from their windows and waving down to them.

_ “Mayes!” _

_ “Hey, Icarus!” _

_ “Pandora!” _

Icarus waved back.

As they moved, Damen lounged against the inside of the cart, hands behind his head. “So how’s your week been? Having all your exams?”

“Yeah, it was a lot,” Mayes replied.

“I think it went pretty well,” Icarus smiled.

Damen raised a brow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Same,” Mayes agreed. “I feel confident.”

“Yeah, definitely pretty excited about it.”

“I’ve never taken an exam in my life,” Damen shrugged.

“That I can believe,” Pandora teased.

Icarus shook his head. “I don’t really buy that.”

Damen gave him a look. “What?”

“A fitness exam?” Mayes suggested.

“I guess a physical, like, health exam?”

“That kind of counts.”

“Not a written test,” Pandora countered. “Not four hours worth of essays.”

Damen shuddered. “Ugh. I’ve never written an  _ essay _ in my life.”

“I’ve written so many essays in the last week alone,” Pandora groaned.

“And for fun for you sometimes,” Mayes teased.

“...Don’t out me like this!”

Damen chuckled, and leaned forward. “But, you’re done? And that’s it?”

“Just this,” the three of them replied.

“And then you’re finished school!”

Pandora let out a low breath. “So weird to think. Four years have gone by so fast.”

“On to the next thing,” Mayes followed.

“Whatever that is. Didn’t really even have time to think about it.”

“We can talk to our mentors. I think Citra has some stuff in mind for me, so.”

“That’s cool. Like, job stuff?”

“Yeah, potentially. I know she’s got some contacts.”

Damen tilted his head, watching Icarus. The triton had fallen silent, looking down at the floor of the carriage as the others talked around him. “Hey Tadpole, you okay?”

Icarus looked up, and the usual grin returned. “Yeah, yeah. Fine.”

“What are you planning on doing after school?”

“Currently, joining Orion.”

“...At the Maw?”

“No.”

“...Do I want to ask?”

“No.”

Damen shrugged. “Okay. Won’t ask.”

He turned to the others. “And you two? Go on, if you had to pick something off the top of your head right now, that you’re gonna do.”

“What, job-wise?” Mayes clarified.

“Yeah!”

“Um… Like, a spy, I guess.”

“Spy?”

“Yeah, it’s what I’ve been training for.”

“That’s pretty cool,” he grinned. “Pandora?”

“I guess going through the same line of work as my sister,” she shrugged. “She works for Councilor Adamos.”

“Okay. So like, Councilor’s aide?”

“I guess. I’d probably have to start way down the ladder and climb my way up, like she did as well, but it’s a start.”

Mayes gave her an approving nod. “You’re the type of person that, even though you have really good connections, you’d want to do things by the book so that you feel like everything is earned by yourself.”

“Well yeah, you gotta prove yourself.”

“Exactly. Even if your sister offered you help, it would feel better to do it off your own merit.”

Damen squinted in confusion. “But have you not, like, proved yourself already? Doing four years of school?”

“You need to have real world experience as well,” Pandora explained.

“I guess…”

“Everyone’s got to start somewhere.”

“I mean, Paycheck’s always looking for aides.”

“Hm. Maybe…”

The cart trundled northeast across the city, away from the ocean, though not quite towards the main gates they were used to leaving through. They found themselves in the furthest corner of the city from the coast. Much of the area was residential, but a huge portion of it was also dedicated to the barracks of Erran’s Legionnaires. The military force was led by General Katia Vassallou, a tough hobgoblin woman in her fifties.

Down a side street off the main road was a sandstone archway, housing a wide staircase down to one of the aqueducts. The cart pulled up next to it. The aqueducts started a hundred miles inland at the Shaiste, providing fresh water to Erran and the region around it. Erran was a dry, arid land surrounded by saltwater, but the aqueducts sloped gently down from the mountains to provide fresh water for the farms and villages. They ran underneath Erran, sometimes popping out over the land outside the city to water the irrigated fields in the farms beyond. The aqueducts provided drinking water, filled the wells, supplied the bathhouses, and met just about every conceivable need for water in the city.

Damen paid the driver, and they stepped out of the cart. “From here on out, up to you. Oh, I should let you know, I’m gonna be assessing you on teamwork, technical skill in the field, combat expertise, and tactics. And then, how you deal with the thing once you kill the thing. ‘Cuz you know, you gotta bring the parts back.”

“Have we got things to do that?” Pandora checked. “Knives and things?”

“Yeah,” Icarus assured her. “We can do it, it’s fine.”

“Is it something you’ve done a lot of?” Damen asked.

“We’ve done a lot of contracts.”

Mayes showed off their bracers. “Got that pelt off that tiger thing.”

“Are we being graded by the school as well?” Pandora continued. “At the same time? Are our mentors somewhere?”

“They’re not watching you at all,” Damen replied. “This one’s all down to me, so I’ll be watching you. No slacking just ‘cuz we’re friends!”

“Right,” Mayes chuckled. “So I guess… we go down.”

Before they went, Pandora stopped them. “Can we have, like, a group hug or something?”

“Sure,” three voices overlapped, grinning.

Damen stood back a moment as the students huddled, and then wrapped his arms around the group.

“You guys are the best,” Pandora smiled. “And, thank you, for the last month. Let’s do this.”

“Yeah,” Icarus grinned. “There’s no one I’d rather do this with.”

“Go team,” Mayes declared.

“Go team,” Pandora echoed.

Icarus clapped his hands, rolling back his shoulders. “Let’s do it.”

“Everyone, eyes sharp.”

  
  


They headed down through the archway, one of several access points all over Erran. The steps were worn from use, the edges growing smooth and dark over the years. As they descended into the tunnel, they reached a neat brick room with a pool of fresh water and a well pump. The room had a nice tiled floor with stone walls, and two tunnels. The tunnel on the wide side of the rectangular pool was about five feet high and quite wide. The other was small, only about shoulder width across, and with only six inches of head room above the water.

“Which way do we want to go?” Mayes asked.

Icarus crouched down, looking for any signs of the mysterious creature, but came up empty. The larger one seemed to connect to another tunnel, but the other was dark.

Pandora took out their arcane torch, waving a hand to cast a protective spell over herself.

Icarus pointed down the first tunnel. “Okay, so, down there, I can see it leads to another passageway.”

He turned to the other. “Down there, it’s completely dark. If you were a creature of some sort, causing a ruckus, which one would you choose?”

“I mean, the difficult thing is we don’t really know what kind of creature it is,” Mayes frowned.

“Remember the labyrinth? We had two doors to choose from at the start, and we ended up having to go through both of them anyway. So maybe we have to go through both of these somehow,” Pandora suggested.

“That's true.”

“Let’s just try the light one first,” Icarus decided.

They waded down into the pool of water, heading towards the flooded tunnels. The water was ice cold, held deep under the city with no sunlight. Stepping in, Pandora felt shivers running up her body, immediately making her shake, but Icarus was loving it. The water rose just about to their waists.

If they had taken the smaller tunnel, they would have had to lie down and float through on their backs, breathing in the small pocket of air above them. With the taller tunnel, they had about two feet of air above the water to crouch in.

“I don’t mind taking the lead,” Icarus offered.

“Yeah, you’re a strong swimmer,” Pandora agreed. “In case anything happens.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

Icarus waded out in front, with Mayes in the middle and Pandora behind. They bent down, the tunnel brushing against their hair as they crouched low. Bringing up the rear, Damen was essentially squatting to move past the cramped ceiling.

After about thirty feet, they found themselves at a T junction, with both sides extending onwards as the water flowed through them. Considering the size of the tunnels and the state of the walls, it didn’t seem like this place was meant for travel.

Icarus looked around, but still didn’t see any signs of the creature. “Left?”

“Sure,” Pandora shrugged.

Mayes took note of the flow of the water. The current was pushing to the left, back towards the city. “If it’s blocking trade routes, then we should go to the right.”

Icarus nodded with the realization. “So we’ll go right.”

“Oh, smart, Mayes,” Pandora agreed.

They turned right, and headed out of the tunnel. Wading through the ice cold water, the tunnel seemed to stretch onwards forever. Where before brick walls were built into shape, the walls were now roughly carved out of jagged rock, some places narrow, some places wide, the ceiling rising and dipping as it wound onwards into the dark.

“Mind your heads when you’re coming through here,” Icarus warned.

“Do you want to take the torch at the front, Icarus?” Pandora offered.

“Yeah, please.”

She passed it forward, and Icarus held up the torch, shedding about fifteen feet of light ahead of them. As the tunnels narrowed, the jagged, hand carved walls threw strange shadows all about. In the little light, it was hard to see if the tunnel was progressing at all.

Mayes took out their hooded lantern, lighting some oil and lifting it up high. The lantern illuminated much further ahead for them.

They continued down the route for a while until Icarus called back over his shoulder. “Are we going to keep going down this way, or do you want to go try the other tunnel before we go too far? Because this feels like it’s just going to keep going and going and going.”

“Do you want me to send Puck ahead?” Pandora offered.

“Yeah, that’d be good.”

“Sure.”

Holding on to the wall, she summoned Puck into existence. There was a small glimmer of magic in the light before he appeared, nuzzling into her face.

“Hey buddy,” Pandora smiled. She sent him out down the tunnel, but as soon as he left the light, he wasn’t able to see more than strange shadows in the darkness of the stone walls. “I can’t really tell without more light.”

“Sure,” Icarus nodded. “Okay, so, we know that this way heads out of the city. And, from what we were told, we needed to head out of the city via a viaduct and slay the creature there.”

“So, presumably, we’re going the right way.”

“It’s just a long way to go,” Mayes agreed.

“So again,” Icarus repeated, “Do we try the other tunnel first?”

“Well the thing is,” Pandora began, “I know I said before about us having to go in both directions, but this isn’t something that has been set up by the school, so…”

“No, I know. It’s just a chance thing.”

“Do we have a time limit on this, Damen?”

Damen was hanging back, leaning against a wall and trying very hard not to say anything. “Nope.”

“I feel like if we know this is the way out of the city, then this seems like the right sort of way to go,” Mayes declared.

“I mean, I can keep sending him ahead of us,” Pandora suggested, gesturing off towards where Puck had disappeared. “So if there is something that jumps out, he will see it first, and then we can deal with it when we get to it. Although, I might need to get on your back again…”

Mayes held up their lantern. “Do you want to send him ahead with the light?”

“Okay!” She called down the tunnel. “Come back, buddy!”

Puck zipped back, and Mayes passed him the lantern. The bird gripped it with its tiny feet, wings buzzing hard with the effort, though he seemed very pleased to be helping.

“I’m so proud of you!” Pandora beamed.

The bird chirped happily. Puck turned around and flew ahead. As he did, Pandora watched through his eyes as the tunnel opened out a bit more, the ceilings growing higher, though narrower. It twisted a few times, but at the end, a beam of light came down. Puck looked up, and way, way above, was a well. It created a spotlight down into the tunnel, with more darkness beyond.

“It kind of looks like we’re going into the city,” Pandora reported. “Because there’s a well.”

Mayes frowned. “But this is the way  _ out _ of the city. Or, it should be…”

“Do we want to keep going then? Because we don’t know how far out of the city this thing is.”

“Yeah,” Icarus shrugged. “We just gotta keep on moving, we can’t expect to find it within the first ten minutes.”

“Also, if it was this close to the city, it would be more of a problem,” Mayes added. “Someone else would deal with it.”

“Okay, let’s just keep going then.”

The water continued flowing towards them. It was slowing them down quite a lot to wade against the current.

“If we want Puck to keep going ahead, can someone help me?” Pandora asked.

“Sure.” Mayes linked arms with her, guiding her along as she watched through Puck’s eyes.

They continued down the tunnels, walking a while further. It was getting pretty cold, chilling their legs. Damen had now shrugged off the cape, which had been dragging in the water, rolling it up to pack it in his pouch with an irritated groan.

As they moved forward, their system worked quite well, with Puck scouting ahead and Icarus in front protecting Pandora and Mayes. After another while, Puck and Icarus spotted something shimmering on one of the rough tunnel walls.

“There’s something up ahead,” Icarus reported.

Her senses still with Puck, Pandora reported the same a second later. “There’s something up ahead!”

Icarus glanced back, grinning. “Does this place have an echo?”

Mayes chuckled. “She can’t hear you, dude.”

Unaware of the others, Pandora continued her report. “There’s something shiny on the wall!”

“We’ll go check it out,” Icarus replied.

They moved forwards, and found the slight shimmer of a scale, seemingly fallen off after being scraped along the stone. Icarus plucked it from the wall. It looked about an inch or so across in diameter, and shinier than what they would find on any usual snake. It had a slightly blueish hue, but they couldn’t yet determine what kind of creature they might be facing.

“That’s good,” Icarus declared. “We’re going the right way.”

“Well let’s hang on to that,” Pandora advised.

Mayes grinned. “Cheating?”

“No! It’s like, showing your work! When you do a math test!”

“I know. I’m joking, Pandora.”

Icarus chuckled. “Let’s keep on going then.”

They continued further, passing by a few more well holes above them. They were further under Erran than they were before, no longer able to hear the ambiance of the city through the wells. Looking up through them, they saw only the branches of trees.

“Cool, we’re out of the city, at least,” Icarus approved.

“That paid off,” Pandora replied.

Mayes continued forwards. “Just keep truckin’.”

Icarus glanced back. “How are you guys holding up?”

“It’s cold,” the tiefling shivered.

“It’s cold,” Mayes agreed. “But I’m fine.”

“Pandora?” Icarus checked.

“...It’s cold,” she repeated. “It’s very cold.”

“Yeah, delightful.”

Damen’s voice responded from the back. “It’s not nice if you have fur.”

Mayes turned back, giving a sympathetic chuckle. “Oh, buddy…”

“Yeah. Really, really cold and wet.”

“Guess they didn’t tell you that you’d have to be dealing with that,” Pandora grinned.

“No. I’ve got my winter coat as well, it’s really long.”

“Just put you out in the sun for a bit,” Mayes teased.

“And then I’m gonna dry all poofy.”

Icarus’s eyes lit up. “Okay, but I’m kind of excited about that,” he laughed.

“I’m really excited to see that,” Mayes chuckled.

Pandora groaned again. “Can we just bask in the sun for a bit after this?”

Damen did his best to push some of his fur back into place. “Yeah, I mean, hopefully we’ll get out of here before it gets dark.”

“Yeah, let’s just keep on going. We’ll be fine,” Icarus assured him.

“Let’s be efficient,” Pandora returned.

They pursued onwards. Puck was still flitting ahead with the lantern at the front. Through his eyes, Pandora caught sight of a smear of blood above another small tunnel entrance. It looked much like the first one, with very little breathing room, and quite narrow.

“There’s blood on this wall,” Pandora reported.

They moved down to the side tunnel. The blood seemed to smear down into it.

Icarus frowned. “Okay. This looks like it’s probably the way we gotta go then. I’ll go ahead, don’t worry.”

He ducked under, taking their arcane torch to light the dark water. The stretch of tunnel moved forwards as he swam down to the other end. He came out into a small room with a grate to be used as a drain. A couple of meaty chunks were floating around, bobbing on the surface, as if something had been torn apart and feasted on there. The pieces were swollen from their time spent in the water, as if the prey had been killed a while ago.

Pandora sent a message to Icarus.  _ “Have you found anything?” _

_ “A feast. Big feast. Something’s eaten something in here, but it was a while ago.” _

_ “Is there a way we can carry on in there, or…?” _

_ “No, I’m coming back.” _

_ “Okay.” _

Icarus came back out of the tunnel. “So that was gross. That was, like, chunks of meat. It was all torn apart, like something had eaten it?”

“Something’s had a snack,” Mayes guessed.

“Yeah, but it’s been there quite a while, because it was all bloated from being in the water.”

“Old snack.”

“Only thing down there was a grate, so unless it was a really tiny thing that attacked something way bigger than it…”

“Considering the size of the scale, I figure it’s gotta be a bit bigger.”

“Did it look like it was eaten in there?” Pandora asked. “Or just that the parts floated down there?”

“I couldn’t tell. But, that’s a clue, and we’re going the right way.”

They kept going. Suddenly, they came to a fork. Some stone came up and out of the water, forming a flat bit of land before the water carried on in the other direction. Peering up, they could see some wet footprints where someone else had waded up and onto the stone. There was also another blood smear.

“There’s blood and footprints up here,” Pandora reported.

“Okay,” Mayes approved. “That’s a lead.”

Pandora climbed out of the water, inspecting further. They could finally stand up straight in the tunnel, the ceiling now about seven feet high. It was still quite narrow, the walls occasionally brushing against their elbows, but at least it was taller now.

“Footprints are kind of weird,” Icarus frowned. They were humanoid in shape, wearing some kind of boots. “Like, who else is coming down here?”

“Maintenance workers?” Mayes guessed.

“I guess. Let’s go have a look down this way, then.”

They took off down the next tunnel, moving further and further away from the water flow of the aqueduct itself. As they pursued, they saw more footprints. Eventually, they spotted reptilian footprints as well, though quite small, only four or five inches in length. Judging from the spaces between the humanoid footprints, whoever it was had started running.

“This person was being chased,” Pandora frowned.

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “Seems like it.”

“Or, was chasing something?”

“Yeah,” Icarus shrugged. “I mean, the fact that there’s tiny creature footprints too, maybe it’s not so far a stretch of the imagination that this thing is smaller than we think.”

“Or something bigger is nesting,” Mayes warned. “Has babies.”

“Oh no.”

“Just like Momma Behir. If she betrayed us… I’m gonna be so mad!”

“She was our friend!”

“She was our friend, we helped her.”

Damen stared at them, bewildered.

“We rescued a behir and her babies,” Icarus explained. “And she made a deal with us that she’d leave the city.”

“We helped her leave the city,” Mayes echoed.

“You guys were more involved in the… the baby behir thing,” Pandora began. “Are those feet the same size?”

“No, these don’t add up to the size of the babies.”

Icarus pumped a fist. “I knew she was good.”

“She’s our friend, Icarus!”

“Something else, then,” Pandora mused, crossing options off a mental list as she went through the clues.

“Okay, so we’ll keep moving down this way, but keep on guard just in case,” Icarus advised.

“We don’t want to get chased as well,” Mayes agreed.

“No.”

“I’ll take the rear then, keep my eyes backwards.”

“Sure.”

They continued down, following footsteps and passing a few more smears of blood. Icarus plucked another scale from the wall, taking the other from his pocket and staring at the pair intensely. “Okay… so it’s got reptilian feat, four of them, and a tail that just about drags on the floor, and it’s carnivorous…”

“And it’s got iridescent-ish scales,” Mayes added.

Looking closer, Icarus could see and feel that the scales had the texture and consistency of iron. “Really hard… natural armour. Hm. More things to keep hold of, I guess.”

Pandora put the scales in her bag, and they pursued on down the tunnels.

Eventually, they started to hear slightly strange noises. The sounds of their own footsteps started to echo around the tunnel, bouncing off the stone in incomprehensible ways. The air began to feel a bit eerie, and they heard the noises of movement up ahead, the haunting echo still bouncing back.

Icarus stopped, putting a hand up. He turned to the group behind him, a finger to his lips. He tapped his ear, and pointed up ahead. They could all hear it, but there was no pattern to the shuffling, creaking movement.

As quietly as possible, they moved ahead, reaching another stone entrance. This time, the archway was hewn very neatly into the rock. The tunnel beyond looked pitch black. The lights they held barely penetrated it, but the sound seemed to be coming from it. Even with Pandora’s darkvision, she could only see about half as far as she usually could.

Above the door was an inscription in the stone, written in Ancient Errani.  _ In times of trial, the path we see can blind us to the path we must take. _

Icarus and Mayes relayed the translation to Mayes.

“Huh,” they nodded. “Cryptic. I mean, it sounds like an invitation…”

Icarus looked into the darkness. There was definitely something arcane about it. Pandora focused on the Ancient Errani, but there didn’t seem to be any spells attached to the carving itself.

As they listened, they heard what sounded like a low, animalistic noise coming from inside the darkness.

Icarus spoke in a low voice. “It feels like there’s something going on in there, but also potentially, this is the creature, up ahead.”

“Maybe,” Pandora frowned.

“It feels like it could be either,” Mayes agreed.

“But also,” Icarus continued, “Walking blindly into it is…”

“Do you want me to send our scout?” Pandora offered.

“Yeah, that would be good.”

“Okay. Off you go, buddy.”

Puck flew into the darkness. He flew forward, and forward, and forward, until she couldn’t feel him anymore. They waited for a long while, but Puck didn’t seem like he was coming back.

“He’s… he’s still going.”

Icarus looked back up at the carving. “In times of trial, the path that we seek can blind us to the path we should take…”

“Well surely it just means, either we need to go into the darkness, or we just close our eyes and see where we go,” Mayes suggested.

“...Everyone keep hold of each other. We got some rope?”

“Yeah.”

Mayes got out their new silk rope, tying the four of them together.

“So, we’re closing our eyes?” Damen clarified.

“I think that makes sense,” Mayes confirmed.

“Okay.”

Icarus led the way into the darkness. He shuffled forwards, eyes closed, and his feet tapped against stairs. “There’s stairs, so be careful.”

“Feel it out with your feet,” Mayes advised.

He began to climb up the stairs, putting his hands on the walls as he moved up in the dark. It wasn’t long until he became aware of a bright light shining on his face. After an ascent of just about thirty feet, they opened their eyes, and found themselves standing outside in the bright sunlight.

Icarus looked around, suspicious. “Um… okay… There’s light, and I’m outside.”

The others felt the same light, blinking their eyes open. Having been underground for a couple of hours, they suddenly found themselves standing outside.

After a moment, they began to recognize where they were. They were high up outside Erran on a hill, with ruined stone walls covered in moss and vines around them. Looking forward, they saw grass growing over the tile floor of a temple, flooded in places with water, with familiar mosaics on the ground.

They heard Damen mutter behind them. “Oh, no…”

Pandora quickly turned. “Did you know about this?”

“No!”

“I didn’t figure this was a real place,” Mayes mumbled.

“Me neither,” Icarus replied.

Damen looked around himself. “We’re not dreaming, right?”

Mayes pinched him.

He pulled back. “Ow, okay!”

Icarus pushed back his hair, taking a breath. “Okay… that’s a bit of a coincidence.”

Pandora still didn’t see Puck anywhere. She waved her hand, dismissing him from wherever he had been before summoning him back. He appeared instantly, and Pandora held him close. “Oh, I thought I’d lost you!”

The bird chirped at her, sending visions of what he had seen into her mind. There had been nothing to see in that room but an endless loop of darkness.

“You just had to close your eyes,” she informed him.

The bird gave an indignant chirp, still holding the lantern.

“No, I know… You did such a good job, you don’t have to carry that anymore. Want to sit on my shoulder?”

Mayes took the lantern, and Puck settled on his perch.

“Okay, no, this is fine,” Icarus continued, steadying himself. “We can’t let this shake us.”

“If anything, it gives us a bit of an advantage,” Pandora suggested. “Because we’ve been in here before.”

“We know the layout,” Mayes continued, “And we know that there’s potentially a naga…”

“Okay. Are we going in?”

“Yeah. I mean, it would make a good creature's lair.”

As they stepped forwards, they could hear the low, animalistic sound of something very large snoring.

“Okay, so something’s asleep,” Icarus whispered, glancing to Mayes. “I am not stealthy in this armour… do you want to go take a quick look ahead?”

“Sure,” they agreed. “Always up for that.”

“Are you sure you want to go alone?” Damen warned.

“Let’s stick together as much as we can until you need to sneak ahead a bit,” Pandora concurred.

“Sure,” Mayes shrugged. “But I’m quiet by myself, if that does come to it.”

Damen bit his lip, looking antsy. “You know, not to step in here, but, I’m kind of freaked out.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of unsettling,” Pandora gulped.

Icarus held out a steadying hand towards Damen. “Dames? It’s okay. Because, this is just… we’re gonna deal with it, okay? And, the whole Fates thing… we already beat it once, in a dream.”

“And we’re awake now,” Mayes nodded. “And… don’t do anything stupid.”

“Please,” Pandora implored.

“Please.”

“We’re stronger together,” Icarus urged. “Okay?”

Damen ran his hands through his hair, and nodded. “Yeah. Sure. Okay.”

Pandora squeezed his hand. He took it quickly, holding it tight. He seemed quite shaken.

She led him forwards. “Come on. We can do this.”

They headed through what used to be a staircase, passing several smaller side spaces that might have been rooms once, the walls now collapsed. Walking through it to where it had been flooded, they passed fallen columns, boulders, and parts of what could have been the roof.

Something else was shuffling around ahead.

“If something’s asleep,” Pandora whispered, “Then it means, if something else is moving, there’s more than just the one thing here.”

“Nesting,” Icarus murmured. “Do you want to take a quick look ahead, then?”

Mayes did their best to quietly tiptoe ahead, but moving through the water, it was impossible to prevent splashing. As soon as they moved forwards, the rabbits on their sword lit up. The others saw the green glow from the blade ahead of them, and suddenly, shapes on two legs began shambling towards them out of the side rooms.

Mayes looked back over their shoulder as the sword lit up, shooting them all a warning glance. Icarus pulled out his glaive, stepping up to Mayes.

Recognizable from the labyrinth in the first task, undead began shambling towards them. Six bodies in various states of decay came forward. One almost looked alive, aside from the wounds ravaged across its body. As they grew closer, they could see jagged bits of teeth sticking out of the bodies.

Damen put a hand on his weapon, stepping back. “This is all on you.”

Icarus pulled out Kord’s holy symbol, holding it aloft. “Lady Kord smites you.”

A wave of divine energy exploded out of the symbol, obliterating all of the undead in near silence. The bodies broke apart, collapsing down to the floor in an instant.

“Oh my gosh, you are good at that!” Pandora beamed.

He chuckled. “Thanks.”

Damen grinned at him. “That was pretty impressive.”

“Saved us some trouble.”

They moved forward. Whatever was sleeping deeper in the temple huffed in their snores. They paused, waiting a moment to listen, but the snores soon returned to their usual rhythm.

Pandora pulled a tooth out of one of the bodies. A couple of the teeth were quite small, only a few inches, but there were some teeth that stretched up to six or seven inches in length, all covered in some goopy substance.

“Okay, keep hold of the teeth,” Icarus advised.

Pandora nodded, crossing a few more possibilities off her mental list.

They moved further in, heading quietly towards the next corridor. As they entered the room, they noticed strangely discolored yellowish green puddles bubbling in bits of the water. The acid was letting off a putrid smell, steaming slightly. As they moved towards one, they noticed something that looked like the head of a snake lying on the ground behind it. It had the same bluish color of the scales they had collected, with a long neck and a draconic looking head. It was quite small, only the size of an arm, but it had definitely been severed off of something, looking about as recently deceased as the fresher corpse in the previous room.

Pandora continued eliminating the possibilities. It definitely wasn’t a behir, and it couldn’t be a dragon or a wyrmling either. “My list is getting shorter and shorter of what this could be.”

“Seems like we’re getting closer to our quarry,” Mayes replied.

Icarus straightened, moving on. “Eyes up.”

“Eyes everywhere.”

“I hope not.”

Mayes chuckled. “I’m just saying, be prepared to strike at all angles.”

“I know. Let’s keep on heading in then.”

They could still hear the snoring. The fumes from the bubbling pools surrounded them, and Pandora and Mayes coughed as the acid entered their lungs. Icarus and Damen quickly covered their mouths to protect themselves from the horrid scent as they passed.

Mayes gagged. “Ugh, that’s bad…”

“Cover your mouths,” Icarus directed.

“Yeah…”

They moved into the room with the fallen statue. Though it had been the Colossus in their dreams, this statue seemed to be of something else.

“So it’s not a carbon copy of what we saw last time,” Pandora realized.

“So this is the real place,” Icarus muttered. “Isn’t it? The dream…”

“The dream was full of more symbols,” Mayes clarified. “So… be aware of acid, and keep quiet.”

“Eyes up.”

They passed by the statue, climbing over parts of it to get to the next doorway. It was a feminine figure with catlike features, wearing a long robe.

Icarus raised a brow. “This is a statue of Sharess.”

“Who?” the others chorused.

“She is a really old goddess, war and hedonism.”

Mayes blinked. “Okay, that’s… bold. This is pre-Erran, almost as old as the labyrinth.”

“Yeah, it makes sense. Wild, okay.”

“I guess people worshipped Sharess around these parts.”

They moved forwards, mouths covered as they slunk past the pools of acid and entered the next room. Sprawling out ahead of them were the remnants of the temple’s exit, with two high walls and an iron gate that had fallen into the water. Beyond that was a huge hole in the floor, almost thirty feet across. There were cracks in the stone underfoot, and the snoring sound seemed to be coming from the hole itself.

Mayes glanced around, noticing a few more puddles of acid. They took out the tiny jar of bee pollen they bought from the Mykons farm, which had been advertised to help bolster one’s constitution. They shook the dust into their mouth, preparing for the fight ahead.

The group moved forwards even further, highly aware of the sound of their legs dragging through the water as it grew deeper, submerging their knees. Looking around the side of the stone walls, they could see a group of large eggs in the corner, each two feet across. One was broken.

“Do we have to destroy this thing’s eggs?” Mayes whispered.

Icarus grimaced. “Yeah.”

“Yeah…”

“Of course we do.”

Suddenly, they became very aware of something large in the room with them. A draconic face slowly rose up and out of the huge well, with two gleaming eyes blinking between blue, shimmering, iron-like scales. Eight inch teeth protruded from its jaw. The creature huffed, watching them.

But the snoring had not stopped.

The students froze as it stared them down. There was silence for a moment, and then two, then three, four, and five identical heads rose up from out of the well. They bellowed out a roar in perfect sync as the creature began pulling itself up to their level.

Two huge reptilian feet came out of the well, hauling the massive body up. An enormous fin twisted down its back across the massive tail behind it, which curled past the huge claws on its feet. Five heads stared down at the group, swaying and bobbing in time.

There was only one thing left on Pandora’s list. “That’s a hydra…!”

Looking between its many heads, she traced a flurry of arcane symbols in the air and threw forward her blindness spell. All ten of its eyes misted over, the heads moving in confusion as the spell hit.

“Good job!” Icarus grinned.

Pandora quickly moved back as Icarus summoned his spiritual weapon. Lorakai’s sword materialized next to him as he sent it off towards one of the heads, slamming into it. Flourishing his glaive, he swung in at the same head, slicing across its neck. As the wound opened, acid spit from it, showering over Icarus as he hissed in pain.

Seeing that, Mayes stood back, swapping their sword for their crossbow before taking two shots at it. The shots hit, but the wounds once again spewed acid, making Icarus yelp.

Mayes cringed. “Sorry!”

The hydra swung its heads around desperately, trying to shake off the blindness as it lunged to bite randomly. One of the heads made it to Icarus, sinking its teeth into him with deadly force. As it made contact, Icarus let out a shock of electricity in retaliation, pushing the creature back.

The second and third heads snapped for Icarus, but found nothing. Charging forwards, the hydra sent its fourth and fifth heads out, one tearing into Mayes as the other ripped into Damen.

Pandora, standing just out of its reach, watched the heads flailing around her allies. The creature blinked, and in a moment, the haze over its many eyes faded away.

Damen let out a yell of pain, increasingly shaken as the battle continued. He stepped far back, and though a head chased him as he went, it wasn’t able to reach him. From a safer distance, Damen let out a wave of assistive magic, sparking a glimmer of arcane healing in each of them from across the room. “I hope that helps!”

Pandora pulled some components from her pouch, flinging out four rays of energy towards the various heads. While two of her shots went wide, the other two blasted into the creature.

She hurried back to Damen. “We got this, right?”

Damen didn’t quite make eye contact. “Yeah, yeah, we got this. We got this, I’m sure.”

Icarus swapped his glaive for his sword, pulling out his shield as he moved around the creature. Sending out another spell, water nymphs appeared out of the water, surrounding Icarus. They passed through the creature, damaging it as Icarus sent out his spiritual weapon once more to carve into the hydra. A few wounds opened through the shimmering, metal scales of the massive creature.

Mayes shuffled forward, swapping their crossbow for one sword. They pressed their empty hand towards the creature, and a wave of Daichi’s necrotic energy exploded outward, but it didn’t seem to have any effect against the creature’s metallic scales.

As Mayes hurried backwards, the water nymphs continued their barrage, circling around the gargantuan shape. It looked up at the spirits in frustration before charging forwards again. No longer blind, the heads lunged in.

One head stuck out at Pandora, taking a large bite into her side. As that head held her, a second swung around to sink into her shoulder. Pandora crumpled in its mouths, falling to the ground.

Damen screamed out. “Pandora!”

Another head went for Mayes, narrowly missing them as yet another made contact, the powerful jaws sinking into their flesh. The fifth head dove for Damianos, leaving him looking much worse for wear.

As the head retracted from him, Damen rushed down to Pandora, laying his hands on her and sending out an impressive wave of healing energy. Damen pulled her up, divine healing coursing through her body. She felt almost as good as new, but Damen was looking quite drained. As he pulled her to safety, another head ripped into his back, but he managed to drag them both out of its range.

“Thanks,” Pandora panted. “I was going to save this, but this is… this thing is really big!”

Tracing out the arcane symbols, a necrotic green version of herself walked out and into the creature. With the incredible impact of the spell, one of the heads nearly severed. The hydra struggled slightly, getting weaker.

Raising Lorakai’s weapon and the shield, Icarus let out another spell, encapsulating the creature in an arcane storm of ice. The floor began to crack under the weight of the gargantuan creature as the heads thrashed around in pain. Stones were shaking out of the walls as its feet pounded against the ground.

Mayes swung out against it again, the first strike bouncing off the metallic armour before the second blade stabbed in. Acidic blood spit from the wound, spraying out over Mayes.

The water nymphs continued flying through, swarming around the hydra. Its massive tail swung, smashing down part of the wall that separated the rooms, almost hitting Icarus as more cracks appeared in the floor.

Two heads dove for Mayes. As they managed to avoid the worst of the first blow, the second pair of jaws snapped forward, ripping into them. Mayes fell to the ground, unconscious.

Two more heads went for Icarus. While one went wide, the other dug its teeth into him, receiving another shock in counterattack as the triton let out a wave of thunderous energy that forced it backwards. Undeterred, the final head lunged out, chomping down into him once more.

Damen charged forward to Mayes. Drained of healing magic for now, he did his best to stabilize them before casting an arcane shield over the triton. “Come on, Icarus! You got this!”

Icarus felt a shimmer of divine energy surround him, bolstering his strength. The hydra was now bleeding from various wounds, acidic blood dripping down into the water to create puddles of steam.

Pandora dove for her bag, throwing some black powder on the ground. A ball of fire engulfed the creature for a moment, scorching back some of the scales and burning away at it. “We need to finish this!”

Icarus stared up at the creature, slamming his sword against his shield. Banging against the metal, he sent out one final spell. The extreme noise shattered around it, and the hydra writhed desperately as it threw its heads around, smashing pieces of the wall. The cracks in the floor started to give way, crumbling under their feet as the creature fell to the ground.

The floor collapsed. The fight was over, but they were still in danger. Icarus and Pandora fell down through the floor. Across from them, Damen grabbed Mayes’ limp form as they dropped, disappearing under the rubble. They fell a good thirty feet before they found themselves lying on the ground, surrounded by rubble, and staring up at the sky in a hole beneath the temple.

The creature’s body was buried under rock, along with Damen and Mayes.

Pandora scrambled to her feet. “Mayes?! Damen?!”

Icarus ran over to the pile, digging through the stones to find the others. Pandora quickly joined, and the pair pulled rocks away as hard as they could, their bodies flagging with exhaustion from bumping down into the pit. There was a glint of gold from Damen’s helmet, and a shimmer of green from Mayes’ sword.

“Icarus, here!” Pandora called.

Icarus rushed over, pushing through the rubble. “Okay, okay…”

They struggled to lift a larger piece of stone, but Icarus managed to throw it aside. Damen, unconscious, was still cradling Mayes.

“Okay, okay, they’re here they’re here they’re here,” Icarus dropped to his knees, sending out waves of healing magic. “Come on, you’re okay, get up get up get up…”

The spells settled, arcane energy flowing into both of them. “Come on come on come on, please, get up get up get up…”

Still somewhat trapped under some of the rubble, the pair of them began to wake up. They stared up, delirious, dust still rising from the floor.

Mayes squeezed their eyes shut in pain. “What…?”

“Hey…”

Pandora grabbed them, pulling them out of the wreckage.

“We did it,” Icarus assured them. “We did it.”

The four of them stood, shaken, hugging each other tightly. The crushed body of the hydra was sticking out from the floor. Three of the eggs were completely smashed, but one was missing.

The four of them looked around themselves. Glancing up, they realized they wouldn’t be able to get back up that way. But, behind them, a long, wide, dark tunnel unlike any of the others they had seen stretched out, with glints of decoration on the wall, expanding out as far as they could see.

  
  



	23. As Above, So Below, Episode Twenty-Three

Pandora stared down into the deep, dark tunnel. “Damen, is this part of the task still?”

“I, um…” he shook his head. “Not as far as I know.”

“We need to get the parts,” Mayes directed. “Find the body, get the parts.”

“Yeah, this is… we can just get you back to Erran with those parts. You’ve done what you needed to do.”

“We can tell the city about the last egg. If it’s fallen down, or…”

“We can try and find it first,” Pandora suggested.

Icarus put a hand on Mayes’ shoulder. “Just, sit down. Take a break.”

Mayes waved him off. “I’m good.”

“Yeah, I know, but just take a break.”

“I won’t.”

“I  _ said, _ take a break.”

As Mayes opened their mouth to argue, Damen put up his hands.  _ “I’m _ gonna take a break.”

Pandora moved around the rubble, pulling smaller bits of stone away, though there didn’t seem to be any signs of a fourth eggshell. Looking up, she found the egg still balanced at the top of the pile of rubble, cradled on the rocks, unbroken. “Found it.”

Icarus glanced up. “Oh, great.”

“Should we get rid of it, like the others?”

“We should,” Mayes agreed.

Pandora sent out a quick fire spell. Flames engulfed the egg, and it began to crack. The shell blackened on the outside, and a tiny little reptilian foot burst out the side. The end of a nose followed, and a blue-grey snout sniffed around in the air.

Icarus cringed. “Oh no… I was kind of hoping they wouldn’t be that far along.”

Two more heads rose up out of the egg. The necks were no longer than half a foot, each lifting a pair of big brown eyes that looked down at them. One of the heads let out a whimper.

Mayes pulled out their crossbow.

“No, hey hey hey!” Icarus put a hand out. “It’s a baby!”

“Yeah, and you saw what it grew up to be.”

The creature cried out again, the three heads echoing each other. Icarus’s heart melted. “No, we can’t kill the baby!”

“Icarus, it’s dangerous. Either we kill it here, or it probably starves to death.”

“Yeah, it can’t fend for itself,” Pandora reasoned.

“Just… just leave it for a minute? Just leave it for a minute, okay?”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know!”

The baby hydra began crawling its way out of the egg.

Mayes headed over to the pile of rubble. Various legs of the hydra mother stuck out, with its tail and one head peeking out at the bottom.

“What do we take?” Pandora asked.

“Teeth and scales?” Icarus suggested.

Mayes nodded. “Teeth and scales.”

“Would that suggest that it’s dead, though?” Pandora countered. “Because we found teeth and scales.”

As they began to discuss, they thought on the uses of different hydra parts, and what may be valuable to the city. Hydra teeth could be used to fashion unbreakable blades, as well as tools for farmers such as plows and saws. The hide could be dried and used for a number of useful things. Interestingly, the tongues were often used to predict the weather. Hung up like a wind sock, if the tongue turned green, the temperature was likely to fall to freezing, while turning black meant rain was expected the following day. The tongues would be quite valuable to Erran’s agriculture industry. Powdered bones could also be used, while hydra fat was a common ingredient in poison. The heads were the most valuable.

“I’ll do some dental work if you skin parts of it,” Mayes suggested.

“I can skin parts of it,” Icarus agreed. “I was thinking, maybe we can take this little one back as like, extra proof. And then they can decide to do what they want with it.”

The baby hydra was crawling its way over the rubble, still calling out. It only had two little legs with the tail behind it, but the three heads were too heavy for it to hold up, and it had a difficult time balancing as it came down.

“You’re too soft,” Pandora warned.

Icarus put a hand over his heart. “Yeah, it’s a baby!”

“A baby monster,” Mayes corrected.

“But it’s a  _ baby…” _

Pandora sighed. “Okay, well, you’re going to have to be the one who looks after it.”

“Okay!”

He put his hand out towards the hydra, and it crawled towards him, slithering down the wreckage. Icarus put his feet on the stable parts of the rubble, climbing towards it. The baby was only about a foot and a half long. “Hey, baby…”

Three sets of big brown eyes looked up at him.

“Want to come with us?”

Mayes rolled their eyes, and set about work on the mother hydra. They managed to harvest three tongues and half a sack full of teeth. It was pretty gross work, but they were able to avoid the acid still seeping out of the body.

The baby hydra was still looking up at Icarus, three heads bobbing in unison. Mayes glanced up for a moment to see Icarus bobbing his head along with the baby.

Icarus picked it up. One head went to bite him, but it didn’t have any teeth yet. Icarus tapped its face with a finger, giving it a warning. The hydra pulled back the offending head.

“No biting,” Icarus declared. He climbed down with it. “We can tell them where this thing is so they can come and get the rest, because there’s no way we can carry it out of here.”

“Do we know where we are?” Damen frowned.

Mayes glanced back down the darkened hallway. “Yeah, where is this?”

“Well, we’ll find out when we go out,” Icarus assured them.

Damen shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Onwards and upwards.”

Mayes gave him another look. “You gonna help me with the skin then, Icarus?”

“Oh, yeah! Uh… Pandora, can you hold this?”

He deposited the baby hydra into Pandora’s arms. She took it very gingerly. “Uh… okay… I feel really weird about this!”

Icarus set about skinning the larger one. “If it bites you, don’t worry, it’s got no teeth. Just give it a tap on the nose.”

Icarus and Mayes easily threw bits of rubble aside to get to the main hide. It was so large that carving off the entire skin would take a full day of work, but they did manage to take a piece the size of a double bedspread, rolling it up to pack.

The baby hydra snuggled down into Pandora’s arms. “Oh no… I don’t think we were meant to do this!”

“No, but it’s cute!” Icarus countered. “It’s cute.”

Mayes shot Damen a look, hoping he would be on their side.

Instead, Damen walked over to Pandora. “Do you want my cape to wrap it in?”

“Yeah, that’d be real helpful!” Icarus grinned.

Mayes let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re all incorrigible!”

“It’s a baby animal!” Damen argued.

“It’s a baby  _ monster!” _

“Yeah but… it’s a baby.”

“Right?!” Icarus echoed.

Pandora shook her head. “Yeah, but it’s gonna be one of those one day…”

“Well, then…” Damen shrugged, “We’ll take it out into one of the marshes.”

“We’re not just gonna murder it,” Icarus declared.

“Like, if that thing hadn’t been here bothering people, no one would have killed it.”

“That’s true.”

Mayes rubbed their face. “Yeah, fine…”

Damen took the baby hydra, wrapping it up in his lion fur cape to carry it. Icarus pulled a bit of dried meat from his pack, offering it out. The three heads fought over the piece, gobbling it down.

Mayes turned back towards the hallway and lit their lantern. “Let’s figure out where we are, and keep moving.”

“How we all feeling?” Icarus checked.

“Okay-ish,” Pandora replied.

“Bit rough,” Mayes admitted.

Icarus rifled through his bag. “I definitely need to have a break at some point, but… I might have a potion.”

“Yeah, I’ve got potions if anyone needs them,” Pandora offered.

Damen shook his head. “I’ll be okay.”

Icarus gave him a look. “Are you sure?”

“I’ll be fine, okay? Look after yourselves.”

“Yeah, we are, but also you. It’s kind of our job.” Icarus slowly drank one of his potions, and turned back towards the hall. “Okay, this looks like it’s been actually made, doesn’t it? So surely it’ll lead somewhere that’ll be easier for us to get out.”

“Has to.”

“Exactly.”

They headed down, taking a look at the mosaic on the walls. There were familiar images of a woman in a nice robe, and though she didn’t have a feline head anymore, there were cats around her. The scenes behind her were a bit scandalous, depicting satyrs dancing with beautiful elven women, with soldiers drinking under a night sky. The mural stretched on and on down the tunnel, scenes changing constantly throughout the seasons.

Mayes tilted their head. “I think we’re still in… Sharess, did you say?”

“Yeah, Sharess,” Icarus confirmed.

“I think we’re still in the temple, because if you look at this iconography, this is kind of what you described…”

“Yeah, this is definitely… cats, and hedonism, frolicking…”

“Yeah, this is…” Mayes blushed a bit.

Icarus grinned, leaning in. “A little bit… familiar?”

“Shut up.”

Pandora blushed much harder, turning dark red. Damen walked past it with ease.

“Really detailed, those mosaics,” Icarus commented.

“Old, too,” Damen agreed.

Mayes gave it another glance. “As old as the labyrinth. I guess let’s keep following it down for now.”

Icarus pointed out a rather lewd part of the mosaic. “Not much changes,” he grinned.

Pandora averted her eyes. Although it didn’t seem like Damen had been looking at the mural, he laughed. “Okay, well, I’m still technically your examiner, so… lead the way, I guess.”

“Are we still under exam conditions?” Pandora worried. “Are we still being graded?”

“Look, I’m just gonna tell you guys, you did great back there, but… if you do something completely ridiculous here, I’m gonna have to consider how reckless you are.”

“Okay. Let’s go, I guess.”

They headed off deeper into the hallway, the lantern illuminating the path before them. They headed forwards for a while before they realized there was a network of gridded tunnels sprouting off to the sides from the main passageway. The air felt rather dead, but there were shuffling marks on the floor, suggesting that something had shambled through.

“Just keep going this way, then,” Icarus shrugged. “So… this is…”

“Unexpected?” Pandora suggested.

“Yeah. But, life is unexpected, I guess, so… just one softball after the other.”

“They should give you, like, double-extra graduation,” Damen declared. “If this turns out to be annoying.”

“They probably didn’t expect us to fight a full hydra,” Mayes frowned. “Right?”

Icarus shook his head. “I hope they didn’t expect us to fight a full hydra!”

“Right? Because that thing was too big to fit down the aqueducts…”

“So maybe it came here when it was a baby?”

Mayes frowned, recalling the smaller head they had passed. “Or it already has a baby that’s out and about?”

“I hope that was the right thing,” Damen worried.

“One of the eggs was already broken when we got there,” Icarus recalled. “But anyway, we did a thing, you know?”

“We dealt with a threat that was posed to us,” Pandora agreed.

As the four of them continued through the wider tunnel, glancing down the smaller ones, Mayes’ sword started to glow. “Oh. Oh, hi bunnies.”

Pandora glanced over. “Problem?”

“We’ve got company, somewhere”

Icarus raised a hand. “I’d like to point out that the sword was not glowing with the baby hydra, which means that it’s safe.”

Mayes squinted at him. “That means that it’s not going to attack us.”

“Exactly!”

“Something is about to attack us.”

“Yeah, I know, I was just- ”

Mayes drew both of their swords. The sound of shuffling grew closer from two tunnels on either side of them.

“Okay, back to back,” Icarus directed. “Can’t really use my  _ getting rid of undead _ thing anymore…”

Mayes hid in another tunnel as Icarus and Pandora stood together. A skeletal undead figure shambled out of one side tunnel, while three more came from the other. All in various states of decay, they seemed much older than the ones on the surface, though there were still hydra teeth sticking out of them.

Icarus held up his shield and sword with Kord’s symbol, sending out a spell that struck the first skeleton with divine light. The figure groaned, limping towards him. “Man, you’re a great conversationalist…”

As it passed by Mayes’ hiding spot, they swiped through it with a sword, and it fell to the floor. The tooth fell out, and the body didn’t move again. Mayes quickly crossed over to the other three figures, knocking another with a second sword.

The skeleton was holding an ancient looking shortsword in a horrible state of disrepair. It retaliated, missing by a mile as the second corpse did the same. The third skeleton advanced on Pandora, missing as well. Damen stood a few steps away, holding the baby hydra as he watched.

Pandora let out a spell of her own, and the skeleton Mayes had whacked went down. She had been practicing with her seablade, and executed what would have been a killing blow on any other creature as she stabbed the next one. Unfortunately, this meant that the blade simply slipped between two ribs. “Dangit!”

“Almost,” Icarus grinned.

“Normally that works, I just sort of stab it in!”

“There's no meat, Pandora!” Mayes laughed.

“The skeletons have escaped the meat suits,” Icarus teased.

“What?”

“Meat suits! People!”

“Ew!”

Damen stood back, holding the baby hydra in one arm. With the other arm, his bracers with the lion claws at the front started to glow with divine energy. He summoned his spiritual weapon, and the dripping, bloody, double headed-axe of Maglubiyet swung towards one of the remaining skeletons. Once more, the blade swooped through sets of ribs, flying out like a boomerang before returning to him.

“That was like, incredibly impressive,” Icarus grinned.

Damen sighed. “Just… depressing.”

“Right?” Pandora sympathized.

Icarus managed to hit one of the two remaining bodies with his own sword while Mayes went for the other, decimating it.

The bodies fell with a loud clattering to the floor as the trio laughed, bones and teeth falling to the ground. Mayes whacked the remaining skeleton once more. It retaliated, managing only a tiny cut on Mayes’ cheek as they sidestepped, laughing.

“Does anyone else feel like they’ve lost it?” Icarus giggled. “Because I kind of feel like I’m losing it!”

“Little bit, Icarus!” Mayes grinned.

With all of the noise, they noticed the shimmer of something ethereal appear behind them. A ghost, stepping onto the material plane, disrupted from its resting place by the noise, materialized before them.

As she turned to look, Pandora’s face twisted and withered with age. As she became absolutely terrified of the spirit, lines of age creased across her skin, her hair greying as she aged a full forty years. She screamed, firing off a spell that seemed to have no effect on the ghostly form. The mood dropped instantly.

Damen wasn’t laughing anymore. Readying his weapon, he swung for it. A boom of thunderous energy emanated from the sword as it struck the ghost, causing crackles of lightning to blast inside of the spirit as it connected.

Icarus’s jaw dropped. “Pandora…? Okay, okay! It’ll be fine! We’re okay! Uh…!”

He shot out another spell. The ghost flickered slightly as the final skeleton erupted into pieces, falling to the floor. Mayes swung twice with their arcane weapon, causing it to flicker once more.

The ghost reached out towards Mayes with a ripple of necrotic energy, but the attack didn’t seem to land. Mayes gave the ghost a shrug, and Daichi’s face flashed over theirs. “Never works for me, either.”

Hyperventilating, Pandora acted purely on instinct. She sent another spell at the ghost, and though frost began to form over its body for a moment, it still seemed completely unbothered. She stabbed at it with her arcane dagger as Damen moved in, picking up a shortsword dropped by a skeleton earlier. The hydra was on the ground, still swaddled in his cape.

He swung his sword down. Another thunderous boom struck the ghost, and the spirit let out a shriek before vanishing. Damen was left standing there, panting.

Icarus rushed over to Pandora. She was on the floor, sobbing and shrieking. He fell to his knees beside her, wrapping an arm around her to steady her as she stared at her wrinkled hands in shock. “Hey hey hey! I know, I know I know I know, we can fix this! We can fix this, we can fix this.”

Tears fell freely from Pandora’s eyes. “What’s happened…?”

“No no no, don’t worry, I promise we’ll fix this, okay?”

Icarus took her hands, and she dropped her face. “Look at me! I’m hideous!”

“You’re really not, I promise. It’s okay…”

“What if we can’t change it back?!”

“We can! We will do something, we’ll figure something out, okay? We’re not going to leave you, we’re not gonna leave you like this.”

Damen crouched down in front of her, taking her hands from Icarus. “This, um… this is gonna be fixable, okay? Now more than ever, we gotta work as a team.”

She sobbed again, hiding her face.

“Dora, look at me. We got this. Deep breaths, you’re gonna be brave.”

She nodded, trying to calm herself down.

“You got any of that anxiety stuff that Alexander gave you?” Icarus suggested.

“I…” she looked in her bag. “I do. I do…”

Damen set his jaw. “We need to get out of here.”

“We need to get back to the city,” Mayes agreed.

“But if there’s anything else in here,” Icarus warned, glancing down a few more tunnels, “I kind of want to take a break before we do anything. I’m feeling rough.”

Damen nodded. “Pandora, do you think you can use Puck?”

She sniffed, still whimpering a bit. “Mhm…”

“Icarus, if you stay with Pandora, me and Mayes will check some corridors, have Puck check others, see if we can find somewhere to rest.”

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed, turning to the tiefling. “Do you want to get on my back?”

She gave him a shaky nod.

“Yeah? Okay.”

Icarus helped Pandora up and onto his back as she sent her senses out with the bird. Puck went down one corridor while Mayes checked another. One space looked to be an old bunkroom of some kind, filled with ancient looking beds that didn’t seem usable anymore. But it was safe and dry, with a door that closed. The other room seemed to be a kind of ancient office, with a rotting desk in the center and papers left all around. It was smaller, but it had a nice, strong door.

“I definitely want to check out that office and see what this place is,” Icarus decided.

“Yeah, and then I found some beds,” Mayes replied, gesturing down the other hall. “For afterwards.”

Damen looked between them. “Okay, so, office and then the other one? Rest?”

“Yeah,” Icarus nodded. He gave Pandora’s legs a squeeze. “You can stay on my back, okay?”

Damen scooped up the baby hydra, now sleeping, and they all continued down towards the office room.

Stepping inside, they saw beautifully constructed stone walls where the space had been dug out, built, and perhaps even buried after. There was a painting on one of the walls, very old and flaking away, but they could just make out the signs of viper tails connected to a humongous creature, with spiked ears and dragon’s heads for fingers. It looked just like the typhon.

Mayes shook their head. “Well if it isn’t the Father Of All Monsters…”

Damen rubbed his face. “This is… getting weird.”

“This is really weird.”

“No, it’s not,” Icarus replied. “Because this is everything, we… everything keeps leading back to this, everything that we do… no matter what we do, always comes back to this, like- ”

“Like we’re meant to be here,” Damen finished.

“Yeah. No matter what we did, we always follow the same steps to get us here, you know?”

Damen threw up his hands, glaring at the ceiling. “Well I’m sick of it! Sick of fate pulling the fucking strings.”

Mayes set about searching the room. There was plenty to find, with papers all over the place and drawers across the wooden desk. Unfortunately, the pages were very brittle, and began to flake if they were so much as touched. Mayes took them gingerly by the corners, carefully laying them out on the desk to make sense of them.

There were dozens of pages written in Ancient Errani, which Icarus translated. They found a map of what looked to be a continent they had never heard of before, labelled  _ Leyith _ at the bottom. The page was incredibly fragile, the ink practically flaking off. They found seacharts from ships, used hundreds and hundreds of years ago, charting travel across the western ocean for hundreds of hobgoblin soldiers.

Mayes stared down at the pages. “This is… ancient. Is this like… the founding of Erran?”

Icarus blinked in disbelief. “Oh my god… I mean, the hobgoblins came over and founded Erran where they landed, and that’s… oh my  _ god…” _

They found directives and plans for the construction of a city to be named  _ “Erran,”  _ which translated to “ _ first landing.” _

Icarus gasped. “This is… these should be…”

Mayes looked back down the tunnel. “I wish I could be happier about this.”

“Wow… This is incredible…”

They found ancient military orders regarding the infantry of the hobgoblin legions coming over, and landing on this new, yet unnamed continent, which they called  _ The New World. _ There was a slight suggestion of worship of Sharess, and what seemed to be a page from a personal diary suggesting that Sharess’s influence could be felt in the marshes. Though they came over with worship of Maglubiyet, they found worship of Sharess already ingrained into the culture, and the hobgoblins merged their worship with whoever had been living down in the tunnels.

Finally, they found notes on the creation of a secret order known as The Typhon Assembly, constructed to control Erran, undermining the rule of the Imperial Courts.

Pandora wrote it all down in silence.

“Nice to see corruption goes as far back as before it was even made,” Icarus grumbled.

“They came here with a plan of pre-corruption,” Mayes griped. “Great. Cool. Rad. We’ve just found…”

“That’s… this is evidence, right?”

“I mean, historical evidence that we can’t take with us because it will just crumble.”

“But we can bring people back here!”

“If we figure out where  _ here _ is.”

“But we will, we’ve gotta get out of here. Stop saying  _ if,  _ because we  _ will. _ Okay, this is great.”

“Well, we know this is here. Let’s go sleep.”

Mayes linked arms with Pandora, holding her close, though she couldn’t bring herself to say anything yet.

The group headed back through the tunnels, thankfully quiet now, stepping over the bones left in the main hallway. There were remnants of very ancient armour on the bodies, and Icarus glanced over the skulls to identify them. “There’s one human here, and the rest are hobgoblin.”

“I guess that tracks,” Mayes replied.

“That’s interesting, because the hobgoblins came here and founded Erran, but the oldest skeleton they’ve got here is human.”

“I mean, there must have been people living around this land before Erran was founded.”

“Yeah, in the office it said that they came across people who were already worshipping Sharess, so, that makes sense. But still, it’s…”

“Hedonistic humans.”

“Wild.”

They continued over to the bunkroom, feeling a bit strange that such a room would exist down in the tunnels of a secret assembly. There were two dozen beds, and though none were in a state to be slept in, they were able to use a few pieces along with the supplies they had brought to build a comfortable space for the four of them.

They had spent all morning searching for the hydra, and it was beginning to settle into late afternoon. “Sleep, early start tomorrow?” Mayes suggested.

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed. “We’ll take a rest, and then we’ll have clearer heads in the morning. I’ll take first watch. You guys get some rest.”

Damen pulled over some of the remnants of the beds, making a makeshift pen for the hydra.

It was quiet in the tunnels. Icarus sat, leaning against a wall, watching over the other three. Feeling a bit stressed, he pet the hydra. “It’s just you and me, Lux.”

After a while, he traded off with Damen, who seemed to be in better spirits after a rest. “Go sleep, Tadpole.”

“Thanks for helping out.”

“Well, I’ve gotta, at this point. Besides, it sounds like we didn’t have a choice. Fate says,” he shrugged.

  
  


Morning came around, though it was still pitch black in the tunnels save for the light of the torch Damen kept going through the night. He rolled his shoulders, stretching. “Rise and shine. I didn’t intend for us to be down here for a long time, but I’ve got some dried meats and stuff that I brought with me, so… something to eat, and let’s get out of this place.”

Pandora rolled over with a groan. “Oh, everything hurts…”

“You okay?” Icarus checked.

“I feel so old!”

“You’re gonna be alright,” Damen assured her.

“If it’s any consolation,” Icarus teased, “You’re like, a really hot old person.”

“Yeah, very hot still,” Damen grinned.

Pandora covered her face. “This is not a conversation I ever wanted to have!”

Mayes chuckled. “Let’s go.”

They exited the room, carrying on down the main tunnel. Damen checked every side tunnel, but had nothing to report. “Seems to be nothing else down here. I mean, I’m sure there’s more rooms we could explore, but…”

“I’d rather come back and do that,” Icarus replied.

“Yeah.”

Eventually, they reached the end of the tunnel. It was still dark, but slowly emerging out of the darkness as the lamplight flickered over it, they found a large stone dais. It had moss growing over it, and looked about as dusty as everything else down there, with arcane symbols carved into the side of the stone. It was raised about two feet off the floor, with intricately carved symbols down the side of it.

Pandora inspected the symbols. “This is a teleportation circle.”

“So it could take us somewhere?” Mayes guessed.

“Yeah, I just don’t know where. Because normally, they’re paired.”

“That’s the rub, isn’t it?” Icarus frowned. “What if it takes us elsewhere, that’s even further away?”

They looked around a bit more, but there were no doors, no stairs, and no other exits. The dais didn’t seem to have magic left in it, but it could be charged up.

“I could put some magic into it,” Pandora suggested. “See if that does anything.”

“I think it’s our only option right now,” Icarus replied.

“It’s not trapped or anything, is it? Is there anything funky about it?”

Mayes looked over it and shrugged. “It’s just a big piece of stone.” They kicked some moss out of the way, revealing writing along the side of it. “There's some Ancient Errani text, so hopefully still within Erran.”

Pandora stepped in to translate. “As above, so below,” she read.

“On the plus side,” Icarus considered. “That could mean that there is one exactly above this.”

“Could just mean it takes us up,” Mayes agreed.

“Let’s give it a go.”

Damen looked the dais over. “Alright, should I pour some magic into this thing?”

Pandora stepped forward to offer her own magic, but he waved her off. “Save your energy, seriously. Should we get on it in case it only does the thing once?”

“Yeah,” Icarus agreed. “I’ll take the hydra.”

“Everyone hold hands so we don’t get separated,” Pandora warned.

“Hook around my arms,” Icarus advised, offering out his elbows as he held the hydra. “Don’t worry, Lux.”

“You  _ named _ it?” Pandora and Mayes chorused.

“Yeah, his name is Lux.”

“Why?” Pandora sighed.

“Because I wasn’t just gonna keep calling it  _ it _ or  _ baby.” _

Mayes shook their head. “Lorakai is gonna kick your ass.”

As they climbed onto the dais, they could see the glint of something shiny peeking out from a corner down one of the side tunnels from their new vantage point. 

“Wait wait wait!” Icarus called down to Damen. “Don’t do anything yet!”

Damen stopped, poised to start the dais.

“There’s something down there.”

“What kind of something?” Pandora worried.

“I don’t know, it’s shiny. Let’s just go see what it is, it might be more. It’ll take two seconds, come on.”

He hopped down, jumping over to investigate.

It was a chest.

Mayes searched it over for traps, and finding one, easily disabled it. A needle shot out of the lock, and the chest opened.

Inside was a pile of 56 gold pieces. There was also a potion in a very filthy, dusty bottle. Wiping the side clean, they could see the swirl of orange and yellow inside.

Pandora gasped. “It's a potion of fire breath!”

“Oh, sick!” Icarus grinned.

They dug around further, finding a dagger in a small sheath. It was not Errani style, but even older, seemingly preserved inside the sealed chest. The blade was shiny and silver.

Icarus turned it around in his hand. “That is so cool.”

There was one more thing in the chest. It seemed to be a small bag made of faded purple fabric, with different sigils of the Calderan Halos woven into it. In the center of the design was a sleeping face.

Pandora opened the bag, reaching inside. Her arm sunk deep into the small bag, reaching much further than should have been possible. “No way!”

Mayes raised a brow. “Pandora?”

“This bag can hold a lot of things! Like, a lot!”

“We could take one of the hydra heads back!” Icarus realized.

“We could, but that’s a while away.”

“Yeah, but it’s a head!”

“We could put these hefty bits in there,” Mayes suggested.

Pandora opened the bag, and they loaded the various hydra parts they did take inside. Icarus looked down into the rucksack sized bag, amazed. “Where does it go?”

“It’s a little pocket dimension,” Pandora explained.

“So cool!”

He reached in, and felt something at the bottom that hadn’t been there before. Pulling it out, he found a rusty old calligraphy kit. “Oh, that’s so cool!”

“I have one of those!” Mayes grinned.

Icarus dropped it back in the bag, and reached in a second time. His excited expression quickly changed to a grimace. “Oh, there's something  _ wet…” _

He grabbed it, pulling out a handful of guano.

He stared at it for a moment. “Are there bats in there?”

“It’s just a bag,” Pandora shrugged. “I mean, I could use those.”

“For spells?” Mayes clarified.

“Yeah.”

Icarus made a face. “Oh my god, I’m glad I’ve got a focus.”

“Put it back!”

Icarus wiped his hand off in the bag.

“It’s kind of your aesthetic, Pandora,” Mayes offered.

“It kind of is,” she mused. “I wonder if there’s anything else in here…”

She stuck her arm inside, and her hand fixed around something cold and metal. She pulled out a small, brass figurine of a peacock. “Brass peacock, I guess,” she chuckled.

“It’s nicely made,” Mayes commented. Giving the statue another look, Mayes gave their best impression of a squawking peacock call.

Icarus jumped at the noise, blinking at them in surprise.

“That’s what peacocks do!” they defended.

“It’s pretty accurate,” Pandora laughed.

“That’s a really good peacock impression,” Damen admitted, “But I don’t like it.”

“I hate it,” Icarus agreed.

Mayes grinned at them both, and Pandora put the little statue back in the bag.

“We should turn this upside down when we get out,” Icarus suggested.

“Yeah,” Pandora agreed. “Maybe not now, but, at some point.”

“That was worth it! Do you want firebreath or silver dagger?”

“Firebreath please, thank you!” Mayes replied, taking the potion.

Icarus divided up the coins, handing a fourth of the pile to their examiner. “There you go, Damen.”

He looked down at the handful, and didn’t argue. “Thanks. Well, that was worth it. Makes being down here not the worst thing that’s ever happened…”

“Exactly! This is great.”

“Let’s go home,” Pandora agreed.

Icarus scooped the hydra back up. “Let’s go, Lux.”

Mayes rolled their eyes. “I hate that you gave it a name.”

“You’re invested now,” Pandora warned.

Icarus gave Lux a grin. “I think that you’re cute.”

The three of them stepped back up and onto the dais.

“Come on, Dames,” Icarus gestured as the trio linked arms.

Damen climbed up with them. “Okay, I’m just gonna channel some energy into this…”

“You sure you don’t want some help?” Pandora checked.

“I’m sure.”

“Can someone hold on to Damen?” Icarus asked, still cradling the hydra as the others linked their arms around his elbows. “Just in case?”

Pandora reached out to hold onto Damen. As he let out a bit of arcane energy, the runes began to glow, fading and flickering for a moment before, in an instant, they were teleported.

  
  


They found themselves standing on an identical dais. They were aboveground, but they were surrounded by fifty foot stone walls enclosing them into the space. A huge building with a massive staircase led up to large doors, with two figures standing sentry outside in robes and masks. Thankfully, there were enough carts and various obstacles in the way that the sentries hadn’t seen them yet.

“Hide, hide!” Pandora whispered urgently.

The four of them jumped down to hide, scrambling behind a cart.

“So,” Mayes began. “...What?”

“This must be…” Icarus shook his head, bewildered. “Fuck, this must be the Typhon Assembly!”

“They’re still going?”

“As above, so below,” Damen mumbled.

“Shit… Do we have to go through to get out?”

The building seemed Errani in architecture, the steps rising up to the first floor, which was raised about twenty feet up on foundations. There were a few windows on that floor, but they would have to climb the stairs to reach them. There seemed to be only the one door at the top, with the rest of the courtyard completely enclosed. The stone dais was the only way in.

“We take out the guards and move through?” Mayes whispered. “Or do we try and sneak up to one of the windows?”

Icarus glanced down at Lux. “I probably can’t climb that with this.”

“...Then we take out the guards.”

“We take out the guards.”

From where they were hidden, they suddenly heard a  _ whooshing _ sound as the dais flared up again. Two new arrivals appeared, also wearing robes and white masks that depicted slightly monstrous faces with beards, with red smeared around the eyes to make them look like they were glowing. The pair stepped off the dais, walking up the steps.

“We can use those outfits,” Icarus whispered.

“Four of them, four of us,” Mayes agreed.

Pandora gulped. “What are we gonna do? Knock them out?”

“Get the jump on them. Yeah, just knock them out. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Wait, wait wait wait…” Damen watched the pair as they climbed the steps. The two sentries at the top inclined their heads, and said something. The pair gave a reply, and the doors were opened. The newcomers stepped inside, and the doors were pulled closed behind them.

“Is there a password or something?” Pandora guessed.

“Why don’t you send Puck up there?” Icarus suggested. “And then we can wait and see if anyone else comes. Hopefully it’s not gonna be too long.”

She sent Puck out, flying him to perch on the doorframe above the sentries. One of the masked figures looked up. They had definitely seen the bird, but they didn’t seem bothered by its presence.

It wasn’t long before the dais flared up again. One more person stepped down, wearing the same outfit and mask, though this mask was streaked with gold.

As the person reached the top of the steps, the two sentries greeted them. “Hail, friend.”

Through Puck, Pandora heard the figure in the gold streaked mask reply. “Friend, I am your brother.”

The doors opened, the person stepped inside, and the doors closed.

“Okay, I still think we need to get outfits,” Icarus urged.

“Yeah, there’s no way we’re turning up looking like this,” Damen agreed.

Icarus leaned forwards, lifting up the canvas sheet over the cart they were hiding behind to search for outfits. Instead, he found a tiger chained down inside the cramped space. “Oh my god, the smugglers! The creature smugglers, there’s a tiger in here!”

“What?” Pandora gasped. “The smugglers are the Typhon Assembly?”

“Or a part of it,” Mayes added.

“Or working for them,” Icarus continued. “I don’t know.”

Pandora gestured over to another cart, glancing to Mayes. “I don’t know if you’d be better at this than me…”

Taking the cue, Mayes snuck across. Pulling the other tarp up, they found more creatures inside. Large birds with clipped wings rustled around inside their cages. They snuck back over, shaking their head. “No, just birds.”

Icarus frowned. “Damen?”

He gleaned up. “Yeah?”

“When you worked for Kondou…”

Damen grimaced. “...Yeah?”

“Was this kind of thing going on? Animals, creatures brought down for you to fight?”

“...Yeah.”

“So this could be that?”

“This could be that.”

“Okay.”

“Have you ever heard of the Typhon Assembly before now?” Pandora asked.

“No,” he replied earnestly. “I promise you, nothing.”

“I believe you,” Icarus nodded.

Pandora turned back towards the dais. “Okay, so we wait for the next people to come through and steal their robes.” She put her head in her hands. “What am I doing?”

“Hey, on the plus side, no one will recognize you.”

“...I suppose not.”

As she looked away again, Damen crouched closer. “Pandora? What you’re doing is trying to make it out of here in one piece, okay?”

“...Yeah.”

“This matters. This is a real life situation, and the four of us are gonna handle it fine.”

“We’ve got each other’s backs,” Icarus assured her.

Mayes positioned themselves closer to the dais. “Alright, let’s be ready to pounce.”

It wasn’t long before two more people appeared with another  _ whoosh. _ Icarus and Mayes moved in, reaching out to grab them. Icarus easily slipped one of the masked figures off of the dias, putting his hand over the mouth area of the mask. The person Mayes had grabbed struggled, fighting back. They didn’t scream, but they were writhing for escape.

Icarus took out his dagger, knocking one on the head with the blunt end of it. The figure went woozy, but wasn’t unconscious yet. It was a bit messy, but Icarus managed to hit them again, pummeling them down until they went limp. Mayes did the same, whacking the other person with the side of their crossbow.

Damen watched them from behind the cart.  _ “What are you gonna do now?” _ he mouthed.

Icarus and Mayes silently dragged the bodies to a hiding place. They took off the masks, but didn’t recognize the people underneath. The pair quickly put on the masks and robes.

“You got a rope?” Icarus whispered. “We need to tie these guys up.”

Mayes cut off some of their less expensive hemp rope, tying the pair to a cart. Icarus took out some of his own rope, ripping off a bit of fabric from their clothes and securing them in front of their mouths.

“You could just go up to them if you’re wearing the robes,” Pandora suggested. “Greet them and then get them, you don’t need to sneak.”

Icarus shook his head. “Yeah, but, I kind of feel like, if we get the guys on the door- ”

“Not the guys on the door, the ones who come next on the dais.”

“Oh, true. We could say that we’ve just arrived.”

“We could go wait by the bottom near where the guards can’t see us,” Mayes suggested.

“Maybe you can get a bit of information out of them, if we beat them up,” Pandora whispered.

Damen rubbed his chin. “I mean, I have an idea…”

“Oh?” Mayes raised a brow. “Share. Share with the class, Mr. Thalasse.”

“This might be ridiculous…”

“Take you guys as prisoners?” Icarus suggested.

Damen squinted. “No, that’s really ridiculous, ‘cuz we don’t even know what this is! We don't know if they take prisoners!”

“Well you said ridiculous! So I thought of ridiculous things!”

The dais flared to life again, and another pair of masked figures arrived.

Damen took a breath, steeling himself. “Okay, fuck it.”

As the trio looked up with concern, Damen stepped out from the cart, speaking out a magical command. “Strip!”

Both of the cloaked figures stopped where they stood, and began taking their clothes off. Pandora covered her face in embarrassment as Icarus’s mouth fell open.

“Do it again!” Mayes whispered. “Tell them to sleep!”

Damen nodded, looking a bit embarrassed himself. “Yeah, um, uh… Sleep!”

The pair crumpled to the ground. Icarus and Mayes darted out, wrapping a hand over their mouths before pulling them back and tying them up again. They didn’t recognize this pair either. All four of the cloaked people had been of various races, ages, and genders, though they all did seem to be slightly more upper class. Searching their pockets, they managed to find an extra 40 gold.

“We should, like, properly knock them out,” Damen suggested. “Right?”

“You’re stronger,” Mayes agreed. “Do it.”

With practiced ease, Damen whacked them both. “That was ridiculous.”

Icarus grinned at him. “Strip?”

“Have you ever used  _ Command _ for that before?” Pandora teased.

Damen made a guilty face, shifting his shoulders as he broke eye contact. “...No…”

Icarus shook his head. “Oh, you  _ liar…” _

“You absolutely have,” Mayes chuckled.

Damen opened and closed his mouth a few times. “...This is not the time to talk about this!”

“Okay,” Icarus relented. “Are we ready to do this?”

“Whatever  _ this _ is,” Pandora whispered.

“We just have to get through, find the exit,” Mayes directed. “And maybe get some information.”

Damen peeked up at the sentries. “Have we got the saying?”

“Friend, I am your brother,” Icarus replied. “Okay, let’s do this.”

He wrapped the hydra in the fur blanket, slipping it into a sack he picked from one of the carts. Passing it a bit of meat, it made another little squawking sound, and he quickly shushed it. With no other options, he put the sack under his robe, giving his silhouette a bit of a belly.

The four of them stepped out from behind the cart as if they had just arrived on the dais. They headed up towards the top of the steps, and the sentires looked them over. “Hail, friend.”

“Friend, I am your brother,” Icarus replied.

They opened the doors. As the group stepped past, Icarus felt the hydra wriggling under his robes.

The four of them stepped into a wide hallway that snaked past several different shelves with books and various objects on them. There were a number of people in masks milling around in the space, talking to one another and reading books. They seemed to be waiting for something.

Ahead of them, they could see another huge double doorway. To their right was a smaller doorway, with some stairs down beyond that led to another hall.

Icarus leaned in towards the others. “So I’ve just kind of thought… we’ve just got in here, and my brain made me realize that,  _ hey, all of those people weren’t coming from the same circle that we did. _ So we could have used that to probably go somewhere else.”

“Or there’s multiple circles that are directed here,” Pandora whispered back.

“That’s what I mean, we could have just used that circle to go elsewhere, you know?”

Damen shook his head. “They don’t always go two ways.”

Icarus sighed. “Okay. We just have to hope that this actually leads somewhere, and it's not just blocked off on the other side too.”

“Just walk with confidence,” Mayes assured them. “You belong here. Keep your ears open, because if we hear anything interesting…”

As they spoke, they overheard a conversation that seemed to be going on quite proudly and smugly between two people in masks. They were discussing the merchant’s guild, and how much better it had been doing since the Assembly had replaced their old leader with a new one.

Damen bent down slightly to whisper again. “So are we just gonna…?”

“Mill,” Icarus shrugged.

“Mill in this room?”

“I feel like everyone is waiting to go into that door, you know? I don’t really want to…”

“Go without permission?” Mayes finished.

“Yeah. But we can go check out that other, smaller door, that’s over there.”

Pandora nonchalantly approached a bookshelf, looking at the spines. The shelves seemed to include literature on high level magic, politics, and warfare. All of the books looked expensive and finely made. Glancing around, she checked to see if anyone was watching her. It was hard to tell with the masks, but nobody was actively facing her.

Pandora took a book on high level magic, leafing through it for a moment before quietly slipping it into her bag. No one seemed to notice her.

Icarus and Mayes, standing over by one wall as the triton did his best to hide his wobbling belly, overheard another conversation. One person with a female voice mentioned how they “probably need to find that Oni that escaped out into Erran,” before it did anything bad.

A male voice replied, suggesting, “perhaps, if the Oni makes itself known to us… it could be useful.”

Mayes turned their head, trying to pick up a second conversation to the other side.

“I understand why it was important, but, Erran’s gonna get a bad reputation if anyone finds out about this piracy thing. We as a city, we’re better than this.”

“It’s because Erran is so important that we do this at all,” the other voice argued. “It keeps the other states humble, if they undergo a little suffering. Bronze Harbour hasn’t bothered us in some time.”

Down the end of the corridor by the bookcases, the trio noticed another robed person walk past, their mask slightly up. Walking with them was a slightly bestial looking humanoid with human features, but covered in fur and fangs with pointed ears and beast-like feet. They were wearing a robe, but not a mask. It was definitely a shifter, but it didn’t seem to be Ursus.

“Oh, no, you…” Icarus shook his head with anger as he theorized. “Should we go check this out?”

“Okay,” Pandora whispered back.

They headed over, moving casually past. As they did, they heard other snippets of conversation.

Behind a mask with streaks of gold, someone scoffed. “Well, if it was up to me, I’d implement a citywide worship of Maglubiyet and ban all the other houses of worship.”

Another masked figure glanced over their shoulder towards that conversation, seemingly eavesdropping as well. Turning back to the person they were standing with, they proclaimed, “I would like a theocracy, but it’s just Sharess.”

They headed down the corridor, trying not to look suspicious. Nobody paid them any mind. All four of their masks had the simple red coloring over the faces of stone grey statues with pointed beards.

Icarus, Pandora, and Mayes continued down, followed by who they hoped was Damen. They were now close enough to see the back of the head of the hobgoblin walking next to the shifter. The four of them followed down the hallway, slipping into little architectural nooks when they needed to hide.

A massive stone archway, triple the size of a normal door, seemed to lead into another room with its door slightly ajar. There were candles inside, with more intricate mosaics, but the hobgoblin and shifter didn’t go that way.

As they moved through, unseen, they heard a bit of conversation between the two. While they walked, it occurred to Icarus that he recognized the hobgoblin. Professor Zyki was moving down the corridor, discussing new Delphos graduates they would be interested in bringing into the Assembly.

He mentioned Arachne the student from the bathhouse who seemed to suggest knowing more about the three students sneaking through. “She is the daughter of Demiurge, and he’s one of Kondou’s top runners,” Zyki reasoned.

The shifter huffed in agreement.

“I’d be quite interested, perhaps, in Hasagawa,” Zyki continued, “But I'm not sure. WIth that whole Oni business, I don’t know which side they’d be willing to be on.”

They reached the end of the corridor. They passed through a very decorative room filled with several huge brass instruments, like some kind of art gallery. Several huge astronomical instruments were placed around, with boards filled with scribblings on the walls. It seemed to be some kind of science lab or study. The ceiling was vaulted like a dome, revealing the night sky. Right in the center was a huge, spherical astrolabe, showing the current alignment of the planets, with a constantly whirring astronomical clock beneath it.

“That’s Professor Zyki up there,” Icarus whispered to the others.

“I thought I recognized the voice,” Pandora replied.

“Yeah, that’s Zyki. He’s talking about people that he wants to involve. Arachne is apparently the daughter of somebody that works for Kondou.”

“Cool,” Mayes frowned.

“Yeah, and he’s interested in you.”

“Nope.”

“I know.”

As they hung back, whispering to each other, they suddenly realized that Damen was gone.

Icarus looked up and down the hall. “Oh my god…”

“Can you, like, speak to him?” Pandora urged, gesturing to her neck.

“Yeah,” Icarus reached under his robe, searching for his necklace. “Shh, don’t worry Lux.”

He wrapped his hand around the necklace.  _ “Hey big guy, where you at? We went down the side corridor, following after Professor Zyki.” _

_ “Saw someone I recognized,” _ Damen’s voice replied.  _ “In pursuit of Medea Callalli. Kondou’s right hand.” _

“...He saw somebody he recognized,” Icarus reported to the others. “Medea Callalli.”

“Medea Callalli?” Pandora echoed.

“One of Kondou’s right hand men.”

“That was a name on the list that I found in Roys’s office. The list with my sister’s name on it!”

“Let’s go find him,” Mayes urged.

Icarus took hold of the necklace again.  _ “Which way did you go? How’d you recognize them? Were they not wearing a mask?” _

_ “Other doors opened after you left,”  _ Damen’s voice explained.  _ “She wasn’t wearing a mask.”  _

They heard the sound of a door close up ahead.

“We can’t just leave Damen to potentially get in trouble with someone,” Mayes decided.

“You’re right, we need to go back,” Icarus agreed.

“If there’s going to be some big thing going on, we don’t want to miss that either.”

They retraced their steps back up the hall. As they went, Pandora sent out a messaging spell of her own to test if Damen was near.

_ “Damen, can you hear me?” _

He was just out of range, and didn’t reply. However, Pandora did find that it was quite easy to cast behind the robe and the mask, her voice and hands hidden by the clothes.

As they headed back, they found that even more people had congregated in the waiting space. It was impossible to tell which one was Damen.

Pandora tried again.  _ “Damen, can you hear me?” _

This time, he replied.  _ “Yeah.” _

_ “Where are you?” _

_ “I moved through into the next room. Big doors are open at the end.” _

“Okay, he’s in the room at the end, big doors,” Pandora informed the others.

They began to make their way over. Icarus and Mayes overheard more people discussing the piracy, and how it had pushed other city states to take expensive, over land trade deals with Erran that could have been made cheaper over sea.

There was also a discussion on cracking down on an illegal slave trading ring going on in the region. “…have to get this done. This can’t be allowed to continue,” one voice declared.

“What do we do with the people that we free?” another voice asked. “We can’t just leave them without any help. We need to offer them something.”

“We offer them food and shelter. We can offer them employment, maybe in the army.”

They continued on, passing by some different gossip.

“Did you hear, how Kondou is enraged with Councilor Leonida?”

“Yeah, apparently Leonida sent mercenaries down there to mess up his operation.”

“If Kondou’s operations can be messed up by just four people, maybe he needs to keep his operations tighter.”

The other masked figure whacked them lightly. “Don’t say that around here.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t have made that chimera stunt so public. We don’t have a foothold at the Maw right now to keep things under control.”

“What does he want with Damianos anyway?”

They continued on.

“Tell Damen we’re the ones coming through the door now,” Icarus whispered.

Pandora sent off the message.  _ “We’re coming through the door now.” _

_ “I’m hiding,” _ Damen replied.

_ “Well stop hiding!” _

_ “This doesn’t seem like a room I’m supposed to be in!” _

As they passed through the doors, they stepped into one long corridor leading down. At the end, a number of plush looking chairs were arranged around a lit fireplace. The scent of wine was in the air, and the murmur of voices conversed.

As Pandora and Mayes crept closer, Icarus did his best to hold onto his armour, which was never quiet, and the baby hydra in his robes. As Pandora and Mayes flattened themselves to the walls, there was a squawking sound from Icarus’s stomach.

A couple of faces leaned around from their chairs to look down the hallway. All of them had gold streaks on their masks.

“What are you doing here?” one demanded. “Get out.”

“My apologies,” Icarus quickly replied, backing out of the room.

The person under the mask scoffed, turning back around in their seat. “Plebeians, honestly.”

Pandora and Mayes, still hidden, listened as the group returned to their conversation.

“What are we supposed to do about the beast?” one asked. “More people have been witnessing, getting suspicious… he’s becoming a liability.”

Another piped up. “You’re right, too many people are catching onto us. You shouldn’t have killed the Armiger at an event as big as that.”

“You’re right,” a third voice sighed. “Let’s just carry out our final directive and then we’ll get rid of the beast. It’s become a liability. Let’s discuss this at tomorrow’s event, after the coronation of the new Armiger. We’ll get it sorted then.”

The figures sat back, drinking wine for a while longer until one spoke up. “I guess it’s about that time. We should get through to the ceremony room.”

They began to stand up from their chairs. Pandora crouched down, sliding herself under one of the low tables that lined the hallway as Mayes shaped themselves behind a statue.

Three figures of varying heights with matching gold striped masks walked by. The patterns of the stripes seemed to vary, possibly indicating who might be behind the masks.

Mayes and Pandora headed back down the hall, searching for Damen. Heavy curtains hung in front of one of the windows, with the slightest toe of a sandal sticking out at the bottom. Mayes pulled the curtain back, flashing him a thumbs up.

Damen let out a low breath. “Thanks. I got lost.”

“It’s okay, they're gone now.”

“Oh, phew, Okay.”

“I think we need to go to the main room and listen.”

“Can we just see real quick if they’ve left anything in here?” Pandora suggested.

“Yeah.”

They checked around, but the only thing they found was a symbol carved into the tops of their chairs. It was a triangle with a circle in the center of it, and lines coming out from it like a sun. Pandora quickly scribbled it down onto a piece of paper.

  
  


While this was going on, Icarus loitered around the doorway, slightly bouncing the hydra under his robes. A few people looked at him strangely.

He waved. “Bad dolmades.”

One of them gave an unconvinced shrug while another snickered behind their mask.

Another came over to him, annoyed. “Do you have any idea where Kondou is?”

“No, not really. I haven’t seen or heard from him today.”

“I was hoping he was gonna be here, I have a delivery for him.”

“Well, I could take it for you,” Icarus offered. “You look busy.”

“No, don’t worry about it.”

“You sure?”

“He must be around here somewhere…”

“We can look together, if you want.”

The masked person crossed their arms. “Did you know they have private rooms upstairs?”

“Do you think he might be in one of them?”

“I just think it would be nice if we were permitted into private rooms.”

“Oh, tell me about it. I just got kicked out of this one behind me by accident.”

“Yes, the lounge of the leaders… Well, nevermind. I’m sure the ceremony will start soon.”

“Well, if I find him, I’ll let him know that someone’s looking for him,” Icarus offered. “Can I take your name? Let him know that you’re looking for him?”

Despite their masked face, the person managed to give Icarus an incredulous look. “...No.”

“Okay.”

The cloaked person quickly walked away, scoffing.

Soon after, the three figures with gold masks exited the room, giving Icarus’s belly a sidelong glance. One was nearly as tall as Damen, while the other two were only slightly shorter. Icarus gave them a nod as they walked past, and the rest of the crowd parted for them. The figures with gold streaked masks continued to the end, and the rest of the group followed their leaders down the hallway.

Icarus hung back by the door, waiting for the others as the slow procession of figures with red streaked masks continued down.

Eventually, one taller person and two shorter people with regular masks came out of the side tunnel. Seeing Icarus’s belly full of hydra, Damen poked at his stomach slightly. “You’re gonna have to put that thing down somewhere.”

“I don’t know what to do with it!” Icarus whispered.

Pandora shook her head. “I told you not to get invested.”

“Listen, I just got told there are private rooms upstairs.”

“Okay?” Damen prompted.

“Apparently we’re not invited up there, but, there’s a procession of leaders going that way. Everyone’s going to the main room.”

“I kind of want to see what the ceremony is,” Mayes replied.

“Yeah,” Pandora frowned. “Sounds important.”

“Okay,” Damen agreed. “Let’s… check out the ceremony first?”

Icarus looked down into his robes. “Lux, you need to stay quiet. Oh, Kondou might be here, by the way.”

“That tracks with your theory,” Mayes nodded.

“Apparently somebody that spoke to me and told me about the rooms has a delivery for him.”

“I guess if Kondou’s right hand is around as well… great. Let’s go sneak a peek on the ceremony.”

“Let's keep towards the back,” Pandora advised.

“Yeah. You especially,” Mayes glanced to Icarus. “With your…”

“Package,” Pandora supplied.

“Yeah.”

The four of them caught up with the procession as the group made their way down, heading into the ceremony room through the huge archway. It was a large and ornate room, covered floor to ceiling in a much cleaner and better preserved mural of the monstrous typhon. The entity was sitting on two huge vipers that made up the lower half of its body, with dragon’s heads for fingers and burning red eyes. In this mural, it sat above the city of Erran, with all of Erran’s citizens bowing down to the beast across the floor.

The room filled rapidly with the robed figures standing in a semicircle around a central stone plinth, just like they might in the councilor’s building. There seemed to be at least sixty people in the crowd.

Behind the central plinth surrounded by the horseshoe row of robed figures was a single chair. Sitting in the chair and leaning back casually in a robe with no mask, was Angelos Kondou. He seemed completely unbothered by the others seeing his face, and he didn’t seem like he planned on being very subordinate to whoever he was supposed to be listening to, either.

Eventually, a figure with two gold streaks down either side of their mask came up to stand at the plinth. “Good evening, Typhon Assembly. It is good to have you gathered here once more. I have called you here tonight because our plans are coming close to fruition.”

There was a roar of appreciation around the room.

“It has been a very good year for the Assembly. Drawing to a close now, I’d say we’ve bolstered the economy of Erran by at least 40%, made new business deals with some of our sister cities to the east, stamped out some enemies that we had lingering… but, all of these things are traits of  _ this _ era of Erran, on which the sun is now setting. Soon the tides will be turning in our favour.”

Kondou sat forward in his chair. “So we’re gonna be doing this next year?”

The masked figure turned towards him. Though they couldn’t see their expression, the figure seemed irritated at the insolence. “Angelos. Sit.”

“No. We need to talk about this. You’ve been charging forward with this plan without discussing it with me, and I’m not onboard for starting a war.”

The two of them lowered their voices. From their position at the back, the students could see on Kondou’s expression that quite a heated argument ensued. The room was still and silent, the tension raising awkwardly as the crowd got the impression that they shouldn’t be listening.

Another masked figure, this one with one gold streak under each eye, stepped forward to join the argument. “The war was never over just because it ended in a stalemate. It doesn’t mean our motivations are depleted. We deserve to run this continent, Kondou.”

“For crying out loud,” Kondou scoffed.

“This is our legacy. The legacy of our people. We’re doing this in worship of Maglubiyet.”

“This is not  _ my _ legacy, Ivan. This city is. My operation is. But I already know how you feel about  _ that.” _

The people in robes shuffled a bit, a few of them laughing slightly in agreement.

The one with the singular stripes, who the students had to assume was Ivan, continued. “I’ve told you, I don’t know what that was about. Don’t throw me to the direwolves with these implications.”

“Like you threw your son to the wolves?” Kondou retorted.

The first leader with two stripes under each eye quickly stepped in. “Stop it.” The figure looked up at the crowd. “We’re going to take an aside. You can wait here.”

With that, the three of them turned on their heels, walking around the outside of the room to exit. Kondou looked quite smug as he followed after, leaning in to make eye contact through the masks of a few people around the edges of the crowd as they chuckled to themselves.

“They were talking about the War of the Three Crowns,” Icarus whispered. “They want to reignite it!”

“The one with the Battle of the Copper Hills?” Mayes clarified.

“Yeah.”

“The stalemate,” Pandora muttered.

“Ended in a stalemate, but they want to take control. They want Erran to win.”

Mayes shook their head. “Shit…”

“Why?” Pandora pressed.

“Control,” Icarus shrugged. “You’ve overheard the people that are here, right? They just keep talking about keeping other people humble, other states, other cities...”

“I hate this,” Mayes declared. “I hate this so much. We need to leave.”

“That was Alexis’s dad.”

“Yeah it was.”

“So what you said did get back to him!” Pandora gasped.

Icarus chuckled. “Yeah it did.”

“We need to get out of here.”

“Let’s just get out of this room to start with,” Damen whispered.

The four of them slipped away, backing out into the corridor. Damen kept a hand on two of them as they looked around, making sure it was clear. They moved into a corner of the corridor outside.

Damen put a hand on his head. “This is big. What we heard in the other room, about the beast?”

“Who killed the Armiger,” Mayes finished.

Icarus looked between them with a start. “What?”

“These people killed Castor.”

“And the beast,” Pandora continued, “Do you think they’re referring to the shifter that was with them?”

“It’s all I can think,” Icarus replied.

“Because everyone assumed that Ursus did it,” Mayes recalled. “He was a shifter.”

“But that wasn’t Ursus,” Pandora finished.

“They said,  _ let’s discuss more tomorrow, _ at the event, at the coronation,” Damen continued. “That’s after tomorrow’s festival, in the center of Erran. The coronation is the new Armiger.”

“What’s the event?” Mayes asked.

“It’s like a lunch, for the upper classes. It’s a big, sort of,  _ everybody get together and congratulate themselves  _ kind of event. I think I might know a way I can get you guys in. I’ll be there, but I’ll think on it, and I’ll let you know tomorrow?”

“Let’s try and figure out a way out of here, then,” Icarus replied.

“There has to be an exit around. If we keep going around the corridor, right? There wasn’t one the other way, there wasn’t one on the dais…”

“Let’s go in the opposite direction,” Mayes agreed, “And just be confident about it.”

The four of them flew around the corridors as quickly and quietly as they could, the hydra now asleep, but they didn’t see anybody else.

At the end of the hall was a long corridor with multiple colored tiles across the floor, with no particular rhyme or reason to the pattern. There was a large door at the end, open and waiting, with the afternoon light flooding out. It had to be the exit to the city.

“Casual, casual!” Pandora warned.

They tried to slow down. Moving forward, they stepped onto one of the colored tiles. It depressed, and a burst of gas sprayed out in their faces from hidden notches in the wall. They breathed in, and immediately lost consciousness.

The four of them dropped heavily to the floor.

  
  


They came back to consciousness in a dimly lit room, separated in two cells. Pandora and Damen sat in one, while Icarus and Mayes woke in the other. They had been stripped of their robes and masks, and the hydra was gone.

Across from them was a simple wooden table, just out of reach. Their supplies, rummaged from their pockets and taken from their bags, were laid out there with their weapons.

The cells were about 5 by 5 foot squares. They weren’t entirely packed shoulder to shoulder in the cramped spaces, but it certainly wasn’t spacious. Mayes put a hand on Icarus’s shoulder as he began to realize just how small the cages were. “It’s okay buddy…”

“Yeah, no no no no no no, yeah...!”

“It’s okay.”

“I know!”

“Deep breaths.”

Pandora rubbed her face. “Okay, think think think…”

“You guys awake?” Mayes called.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Damen echoed. “Fuck… Fuck!”

Mayes looked around the cage, finding nothing. “Shit.”

“We’ve got to do something about this.”

Pandora fiddled with the lock on her cell, examining it.

“If I had my trap tools,” Mayes shook their head. “Easy.”

“Can you see them on the desk?” she asked.

“I can see my bag.”

As they stood, deliberating, the door at the end of the room was casually thrown open. Robed, but with no mask, the drow elf they had let escape from Kondou’s underground lair walked in. She smiled, walking right up to the cells. Passing over the three of them, she grinned at Damen. “Damianos…”

He hung his head. “Medea.”

“How nice to see you and your friends. This was a surprise. Leonida send you in here?”

Damen glanced to the others, and Icarus nodded. “...Yeah,” he lied.

“Funny. I thought the two of them were past this little petty feud. Well, you and your friends can sit pretty, and I’ll go tell Leonida that I found his little mercenaries.”

She stood close, but not close enough to touch. She was smarter than that.

“Ta ta for now.” Medea disappeared, pulling the door shut behind her, though they didn’t hear it lock.

Icarus was breathing heavily. “I’m just gonna… I’m, I’m gonna…”

Pandora reached through the bars, but the table was infuriatingly just out of reach.

“Okay, we need to get out, right,” Icarus repeated. “I’m gonna…”

“Can you send Puck?” Mayes urged.

Pandora quickly summoned Puck into the cell. “Buddy, can you get the keys if you can see them? Or Mayes’ trap tools, or anything?”

The bird chirped at her.

“I knew I could rely on you.”

Puck flipped over to the table, searching around. Though he didn’t find any keys, he hopped around to poke his beak into their bags, pulling out the trap tools.

“That’s it! That’s the one! That’s so good, I’m so proud of you.”

Puck returned the tools to Pandora, and she tossed them over to Mayes. They reached around the cell, finding it quite annoying to do it backwards like this, and it didn’t work on the first try. Icarus was standing very close behind them the whole time. They tried again, and it worked.

Outside the room, they could hear movement coming back towards them. They managed to push their cell open, and Icarus and Mayes stepped out.

“Okay, we need to grab weapons,” Icarus directed.

“You start grabbing that, I’ll get these guys out.”

“Okay.”

Icarus started putting his stuff on as Mayes got the second lock open, freeing the others.

“Come on, come on,” Damen urged.

The four of them grabbed their things as fast as they could. Icarus stood with his back against the wall by the door, sword and shield out, ready to strike whoever walked through while Mayes hid under the table.

They waited, but nobody came in. Whoever it was moved past them.

“Can we go?” Mayes whispered. “And be more careful with that stupid corridor?”

“Let’s move,” Icarus agreed.

“Quietly, quickly.”

They stepped out of the room. Someone in a robe and mask with red markings stood down the other end of the corridor to their left. To their right were the same multicolored floor tiles. As the person started moving towards them, Mayes did their best to search for the mechanism that worked the tile trap, but came up empty.

Icarus stepped forward, sending out a magical command. “Sleep.”

The figure dropped to the floor.

“That’s not gonna last long,” Pandora warned.

“Screw it,” Damen charged over and stomped on their head, knocking them out cold and breaking their mask. “What are we going to do?”

“Cover our mouths,” Icarus advised. “And just go for the door.”

“Just bolt?” Mayes frowned.

“Yeah.”

“Can you waft the gas away?” Pandora asked. “Is that a thing you can do?”

“Yeah! I can do a gust of wind, and do that.”

“Do that as we run?” Mayes strategized.

Pandora nodded. “Send it ahead of us.”

Icarus stepped forwards. “I’ll go in front, then you just follow, okay?”

Damen pulled up his shirt. “Cover our mouths. Everyone, cover yourselves up.”

“Deep breaths and run,” Mayes replied.

“And close your eyes if you have to.”

They positioned themselves along the start of the tiles. “Okay,” Pandora took a breath. “Ready?”

Icarus stood up at the front, holding out Kord’s symbol. A tunnel of wind blew out in front of him as the group began running towards the door. They felt multiple tiles depressing under their feet, and some not. There was clearly a pattern to them, but it didn’t matter. The gust of wind blasted down the hall, throwing the door open at the end. The four of them ran through the tunnel, their hair flying everywhere as they pushed out of the doors and into a courtyard.

As they did, they felt themselves move through a shimmer of magic, and they stepped out into the grounds of the abandoned bathhouse above Kondou’s lair. Turning back, they could see nothing but a wall.

“Remember where this is, okay?” Icarus called to the others. “But we just need to keep moving.”

“We don’t have time for anything else,” Damen agreed.

“Poor baby. I’m sorry, Lux.”

They kept moving. After a short while, Damen waved them into an alleyway. “Pull aside, pull aside. Just deep breaths, okay?”

Pandora held a wall, struggling for breath a bit in her new form. “I can’t quite keep up with you guys now.”

Damen looked her over. “What time do we think this happened yesterday?”

“Late afternoon?” Mayes guessed.

“Late afternoon, then we’ve got maybe a couple of hours.”

“A temple?”

Pandora rubbed her face. “Where even are we? I don’t know this area...”

Icarus looked around, but there were no carts to be found. The streets were empty.

“I’m going to take you to Pešek,” Damen decided.

Pandora took a few more deep breaths. “What for?”

“He’s a better mage than any of us. If there’s anyone who can do anything, it’s probably him. Just give me ten minutes, okay?”

“How long do we have?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Okay, if you’re going to take ten minutes, I need to sit down.”

“Sit, sit.”

Pandora sank to the ground, leaning against a wall. In the alley, Damen began to cast. Placing one hand on his gauntlet, divine energy began to circle it. Before long, there was a shimmer of magic as he conjured a shape that eventually settled into the form of a warhorse wearing the colors of the Errani Legions.

He turned back to Icarus and Mayes. “You two, I’m just gonna take Pandora and go.”

“Yeah, we’ll catch up,” Mayes agreed.

“You know where Pešek’s place is, we’ll see you there.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Icarus replied. “Get her there.”

Damen looked back to Pandora. “You ready?”

She stood, hugging the other two. Icarus gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You’ll be fine.”

She sniffed a bit, holding back tears. “Mhm. Yep.”

Damen climbed back up onto the horse, putting on his helmet to vaguely disguise himself before pulling Pandora up behind him. “Hang on, sweetheart.”

She wrapped her arms around him. Damen gave the others one last glance. “See you shortly.”

With that, he kicked his heels into the horse, and it took off through the streets.

Mayes gave Icarus a big hug.

He returned it. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

Mayes let him go, and then offered a big, forced smile. “Race you there!”

Mayes took off running. Icarus gave them a head start, and then followed behind.

  
  


As they took off through the city, Pandora and Damen flew on the horse. Seeing an Errani Legionnaire’s warhorse moving through the streets at speed, people parted on the streets, making room for them to pass. Damen didn’t stop, riding silently across the city. She held on to him tightly, and Damen kept one arm on her to make sure she was safe.

They arrived at Pešek’s accommodations, and Damen hammered his hand on the door, dismissing the warhorse in an instant. The doors were opened by the same servant who had greeted them before.

Damen pulled off his helmet. “Where’s Roman, I need him.”

“Uhh… I will fetch him! Please…” the servant led them through to a plush lounge with velvet seats before hurrying off.

“Just sit,” Damen advised. “Wait. I’m sure he’ll be here.”

Pandora gulped. “What if he can’t fix this, Damen?”

“...Then we deal with that. There’ll be some way, there will be.”

She covered her face with her hands, sobbing quietly.

“Hey…” he took her hands, pulling them away.

“I’m scared! I’m really scared…”

“I know. I know, it’s okay to be scared. We’re gonna do everything we can do, and if we can’t do anything right now, then we’re gonna… I don’t know. Whatever it takes.”

“Okay…”

Suddenly, Pandora heard a voice in the back of her mind.  _ “Pandora… I can help you.” _

“W… What?”

Damen blinked. “What?”

“Didn’t you hear that?”

“No?”

She shook her head, tears falling down her face. “I’m hearing things…”

“Hey, it’s okay.” He hugged her, and she leaned into him. He cradled her there for a while.

After about twenty minutes, Pešek arrived through the front door, looking the same as the last time they had seen him. “Damen, what’s going on?”

He swallowed. “This is, um…”

“Yeah, I recognize, uh… Pandora?”

She was too ashamed to meet his eyes. “Yeah.”

“We came in contact with some kind of spirit,” Damen explained. “And, um… I don’t know. It did something to her.”

Pešek rubbed his chin. “Okay. I should have something, give me a short while with my books.”

He disappeared up the steps. Damen rubbed Pandora’s back, trying to comfort her as best he could.

She was still straining to hear the voice again.

_ “Pandora… Reach out for me, I can help you.” _

“Who are you…”

Damen pulled back a bit. “What?”

She whimpered. “I’m going crazy Damen, I think…”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re under a lot of stress, I get that. Just… take deep breaths. Deep breath in… that’s it.”

After a few more minutes, Roman came back downstairs with a book in hand. He flipped through the pages. “Here it is, the visage of a spirit that frightens someone in an arcane fashion, beyond the limits of normal fear…”

“That feels accurate,” Pandora sniffed.

“There is a spell for restoration.”

“I’ve heard of that spell. That’s… that’s a big spell.”

He shrugged. “Shouldn’t take too much.”

He went over to a few drawers at the side of the room, looking through various components. He brought a few over, and she saw him sprinkling diamond dust into a bowl before he bent on one knee in front of her. “You’re going to be okay.”

“That’s a lot that you’re putting in there, that’s a lot…”

Pešek didn’t reply, dismissing the comment. He reached up and touched his holy symbol of Maglubiyet, and then reached forward to touch her.

  
  


Icarus and Mayes ran across the city for nearly half an hour before they found themselves in the right district for Pešek’s place. After another five, they were at his door. Mayes conserved their energy as they ran, and as Icarus approached the door, they kicked into a sprint at the last minute. Out of breath and very sweaty, Mayes gave a laugh as they reached the door first. “Okay, let’s go check on our girl.”

Icarus jogged up a moment after, not out of breath at all. “Yeah.”

They knocked on the door, and Damen answered.

“Hi,” the pair greeted.

Damen gestured them inside, and they moved past the doors to the lounge area. They saw Pešek standing there, and he stepped to the side, revealing Pandora restored to herself.

The pair ran to wrap her in a sweaty hug.

“Hi,” she smiled.

“Hey stranger,” Icarus replied. “So happy to see you.  _ So _ happy to see you.”

“So good to see you!”

“We’re all okay,” Mayes sighed.

Icarus pressed a kiss to Pandora’s head. “You’re okay.”

“Thank you, Lord Pešek.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem,” he smiled.

Pandora stood, giving Pešek a gracious kiss on the cheek. “Thank you so much.”

He smiled, putting a hand on her shoulder to squeeze it. “Don’t worry about it. So, the four of you are in a state.”

The three of them shared a look. “Yeah…”

“There’s a lot going on in this city,” Icarus shrugged.

Pandora gave Damen a look, silently asking if they should tell Pešek what had happened. Damen looked like he trusted Pešek with his life, and right now, so did Pandora. “Would anyone else feel better getting this off their chests?” she asked.

Mayes gave Pešek a look. “What does the name  _ Typhon _ mean to you?”

Pešek shrugged. “I mean, Damianos has mentioned it in relation to your dreams. Is it something to do with that?”

Mayes nodded. He certainly wasn’t saying everything, and Mayes gave the others a cautious glance, but they continued on. “There’s, I guess… we found out a little bit more to our dreams than we wanted to. That’s the best way to put it.”

“Dreams rooted in reality, I suppose,” Pandora expanded.

“Strange murals, too. This creature…”

“Some kind of vision of what we found, wasn’t it,” Icarus frowned. “But at the end of the day, the dreams have led us, I guess, to looking after Damen, which led us to finding out a whole subculture of this… underground hand on the city, which is leading everything, killing people to put their own in charge…”

“They killed the Armiger,” Pandora mumbled. “Or at least, arranged to have him killed.”

Pešek gave a slow nod. “I think… it’s probably best that you tell me everything that you know.”

“Okay,” Icarus agreed.

The trio sat down with him, explaining what had happened as Damen helped to fill in the gaps. Taking it all in, Pešek leaned forward in his seat, rubbing his hands together in thought.

“Yeah,” Pandora apologized. “It’s been a long day…”

He held his face for a moment. “This is a lot of information. Um…”

“One of our teachers was down there, so now, who do we trust?”

“We should talk to our mentors, right?” Mayes suggested.

“Can you trust them?” Pešek warned.

“Yes,” Pandora and Icarus quickly overlapped.

“I would trust Lorakai with my life,” Icarus promised.

Pandora nodded. “As I would Alexander.”

“I mean, from everything you’ve told me,” Pešek thought, “It doesn’t seem like this group of people is looking to hurt random individuals in the city. They wouldn’t necessarily come for your life. I don’t know…”

“Lorakai… I think, tried to warn me,” Icarus realized. “A while ago, we were having a conversation, and he said that there was something going on in the city, and that I needed to be careful, and that he would worry about that.”

“I mean, even so,” Pandora continued, “We were meant to be back after our third task yesterday, and we didn’t show up. We fell through the floor and disappeared!”

“We need to get home,” Mayes sighed.

“We do.”

“Can you like… get us a cart, or something? To Delphos?”

“Of course,” Pešek agreed.

“Thank you.”

“Let me have that arranged.”

“Appreciate it.”

He left the three of them alone with Damen, who had been sitting with his head in his hands for the last twenty minutes.

“So,” Icarus began, looking to Pandora. “Upsides. You definitely didn’t get recognized.”

“Not that I know of,” she shrugged.

“But you wouldn’t have, you know? Because you looked different than the last time that we saw that drow.”

“I mean… only older.”

“That’s still different enough, you know? If you don’t know what’s happened.”

“There’s not that many tieflings in this place…”

“Medea thought we worked for Leonida,” Damen recalled.

“Yeah, that’s ‘cuz I…” Icarus trailed off, grinning to himself. “I kinda made them think that we did.”

Damen chuckled. “I dunno whether that’s better or worse.”

“Well, we were escaping Kondou’s lair, and I shouted back to see her response.”

“I mean, the infighting caused by it clearly made Kondou petty enough to just come out and say some stuff while we were there,” Mayes reasoned. “So…”

“If anything, we might be able to use that,” Damen agreed. “We push the balance.”

“Yeah, stoke the fire.”

“So that’s a good thing we got away before Leonida got there,” Icarus replied. “Because he would have recognized us- well,  _ me, _ from the second task. So Kondou could still think that we still work for him.”

“And that Leonida’s trying to deny it. Why wouldn’t he?” Damen grinned. “Look, tomorrow… they said something’s happening at the festival.”

“This event that you mentioned?” Mayes prompted.

“They were going to finish finalizing the plans or something,” Pandora remembered.

“I’m working at the festival tomorrow,” Icarus offered. “So I'll be around.”

“Yeah, we were all going to go anyway.”

“I’ll be there, and I’ll be in the event,” Damen nodded. “I’ll see what I can do to get you in. I’ll contact you in the morning. For now just go and rest, try and sleep I guess.”

“Yeah, we should do that,” Icarus sighed.

“Wait!” Pandora’s head shot up. “What day is it?”

Damen glanced over. By now, the day was settling into early evening. “It’s the fifteenth.”

Mayes’ mouth fell open. “No…!”

Pandora gave them a warning look. “Yeah…”

“Oh, no!” They dropped their head for a moment as the realization hit. “My girlfriend’s here! It’s the Symposium!”

“It’s the Symposium.”

“Well, I’m gonna go sleep, ‘cuz I don’t have a date,” Icarus declared.

“We should get back,” Pandora sighed. “We need to find our mentors anyway.”

“We should get back,” Mayes agreed. “And I guess, at least, apologize.”

“I mean, you were gone two days,” Damen shrugged. “They didn’t give you a time limit.”

“They didn’t,” Pandora admitted, “But it was a cut and dry, kill the thing and leave.”

“It could have taken you two days to find it,” Damen argued.

“Come on, let’s just get back,” Icarus urged. “It was a hydra, after all.”

“Yes, get back. I will see you tomorrow.”

“Sure. Thanks, by the way.”

Damen swallowed, looking over the three of them. “...Can I have a hug?”

They moved in, and he pulled all three of them into an embrace. “Look after yourselves.”

“You too,” Mayes returned.

Pandora kissed him on the cheek. “I owe you so much right now, and I won’t forget that.”

He chuckled, ruffling her hair. “Go on, get out of here.”

Damen had indeed dried poofy. Below his gladiator skirt, the long winter coat of his leg fur looked extremely fluffy. Mayes made sure to casually ruffle some fur as they hugged him, trying not to look like they were doing it on purpose. It was very soft.

From there, they left Damen and headed back out to the main entrance. The servant opened the doors, leading them to a fine, fancy cart waiting for them outside.

“Take care of yourselves,” Pešek advised.

“You too,” Mayes returned.

Pandora gave him a soft smile. “Thank you so much.”

“I know this probably doesn’t need to be said, but…” Icarus frowned, looking up at Roman. “Damen was recognized by Medea.”

“And I will continue to protect him,” he replied. “As I always have.”

“I know. Thanks.”

“Thank you,” Pandora echoed.

Mayes waved. “Goodnight.”

They climbed onto the cart, asking the driver to race back towards Delphos Academy for their last ever day at school.

  
  



	24. Solstice, Episode Twenty-Four

The three of them rode Pešek’s horse drawn cart back to Delphos Academy. Pulling up outside, they could already hear the music coming from the inside of the courtyard. It was growing dark as night rolled in, and the ball was in full swing.

“We’ve still got all of this stuff we need to drop off,” Icarus sighed.

“Let’s just see if we can find someone in the halls, maybe,” Mayes replied.

Pandora looked down at herself. “Also, kind of would like to have a wash.”

“Same.”

The trio headed inside, but the hallways were deserted. Heading towards Sebaste’s office, they ran into a teacher familiar to Icarus and Mayes. Professor Praxis was a leonin that taught melee and strategy classes. At 6’5”, he had a broad and lean build, looking like a lion on two legs. He had dark, tawny fur, with a distinct stripe of white across his nose. Praxis had amber eyes beneath heavyset eyebrows, a sagely rest to his facial expression, and a warm tilt to his mouth. His left arm was amputated above the elbow, and a long scar extended from the healed wound up to his shoulder. He was a calm and kind man who took honor very seriously. Though good natured, he loved fights.

As he came their way, his face broadened into his wide, sincere smile. “Hi. The three of you… you look like you’ve just come back from a contract?”

“Our third task, actually,” Mayes explained.

“Oh! I’m so sorry that there’s no one else around…”

“That’s okay,” Icarus assured him. “We’ve just got some hydra pieces to drop off.”

“Right. Um… I suppose if you follow me, we don’t want to just leave those out on a desk.”

“No.”

“So, I trust it went well?”

“Um… We were sent to dispose of a creature, and it was a hydra.”

“Fully grown,” Mayes added.

Professor Praxis stopped a moment in surprise. “I’m… very happy to see you made it back in one piece.”

“But, some tunnels collapsed, and- ”

“That’s a different thing, though,” Icarus interjected.

“It took us longer to get back, because we had to crawl up.”

“You would have loved it, I think.”

He smiled. “It does sound like quite the adventure. Well, come with me, come with me…”

He led them down the halls. “So tunnels? That sounds interesting. You know how I feel about the history around here, always fascinated to know more about this area.”

“Okay…” Icarus paused, thinking for a moment before he continued. “Yeah, the tunnels, you honestly would have loved it. They were Pre-Erran.”

His face lit up in interest. “Pre-Erran?”

“There were documents and maps down there of the journey that the hobgoblins first took down here,” Mayes explained.

“And like, the blueprints for actual Erran,” Icarus grinned. “Before it was even built.”

“But too old to bring with us.”

“Iconography to Sharess, as well,” Pandora added.

Praxis nodded with fascination. “Sharess? Oh, this is incredibly interesting. I would love to hear all about it another day.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Icarus agreed. “But we should drop this off…”

He led them down to a cold storage area on the basement level of Delphos, where they could lay out the parts, label them, and fill out the requisite paperwork.

Icarus handed a page towards Praxis. “If you can be our…?”

“Witness,” Pandora supplied.

“Witness? That this is our stuff?”

“Sure,” he took the paper, signing it as  _ Praxis of the Iron Claw. _ “Right, that’s all witnessed. I’m sure you can come back to it and make sure it’s all signed off by Sebaste and everything.”

Mayes gave an appreciative nod. “Thanks.”

“Has the Symposium started?” Pandora asked.

“It has,” he apologized.

Mayes cringed. “How long has it been going on for?”

“Um, about an hour.”

“Okay… we should wash quickly.”

“You should go enjoy yourselves. Everything else can be dealt with another day of the year.”

“Sure,” Icarus agreed.

“Thank you very much,” Pandora offered.

He smiled, taking their paperwork. “No problem.”

The three of them split off, heading back towards their separate dorms to scrub up as best they could.

  
  


Mayes got changed into the fancy trousers and kimono that their parents had sent them. They tried to do their hair up a bit nicer, but as always, a few wispy bits stuck out.

Icarus’s fanciest clothes were his temple robes, which were reserved for the next day. Instead, he wore a plain tunic, with nothing too fancy. Before he left, he took a little bag with a letter inside with him.

Pandora wore a dress that started white at the top, moving through the yellow, orange, red, and purple colors of the sunset to a flowy skirt at the bottom. She put on some of her jewelry, using a bit more of her honey lotion to get rid of the cave smell.

Later, they ran into each other in the courtyard. Half of the space had been sectioned off for the event with a floating curtain, allowing people to pass by without disrupting the occasion.

“Hey, look at you!” Icarus greeted, smiling to Pandora before turning to Mayes. “Look at you!”

“You guys look great!” Mayes returned.

Pandora grinned. “You guys look so good.”

“You look gorgeous,” Icarus declared.

She waved a hand. “Just something I threw on…”

“That’s a really nice dress, Pandora,” Mayes encouraged.

She blushed. “Thanks…”

“Gives you a youthful look,” Icarus teased.

Mayes shot him a glance. “Too soon.”

Pandora chuckled, shaking her head. “No, please no…”

“You look beautiful,” Icarus amended. “And you look incredibly dashing,” he nodded to Mayes.

They grinned. “Thank you.”

As the trio headed towards the semi-translucent curtain, they saw the ticket desk out front. Atlas, a half-elf half-dragonborn Imperatoria student waited at the desk. They were quite tall, reaching 6’3”, with olive skin and black scales that lined the higher features of their face, including along the cheekbones, bridge of their nose, hairline, temples, and a couple across their chin. They had a slim but athletic build with broad shoulders, and a pair of tall brown horns extending from their temples which curved slightly back towards the back of their head. Atlas had the short, pointed ears of an elf, with a long black scaled draconic tail swaying behind them. They had a short mop of black hair undercut around the back and sides, and a longer braid down the left side of their face which reached their chin and ended in a small silver charm of a sunburst. They sat at the desk, stoic and stony faced, wearing the usual student uniform of the black chiton with Imperatoria accessories.

“Hey, Atlas,” Icarus greeted.

They glanced up. “Hi.”

“How’s it going?”

“Yeah,” they shrugged. “Not much to do after everyone’s arrived.”

“You get stuck as a volunteer?” Mayes guessed.

“Volunteered to help,” they replied. “Stuck with this.”

“Are we too late to go in?” Pandora worried.

“No no, you can go in. In fact, there are some people asking for you. You two,” they gestured to Mayes and Pandora.

“Yup,” Mayes grimaced. “I feel real bad…”

“Well, go get your girlfriend, go on,” Icarus waved them forwards. “And you,” he looked back to Pandora, “Go find your boyfriend.”

“Yes  _ dad,” _ Pandora teased.

“Icarus,” Mayes put a hand out. “You owe me a dance.”

“And me!”

He grinned. “Okay, obviously.”

“We have to show the dance class that we still win!” Mayes chuckled.

“I mean, I  _ did,” _ he gestured down to the gold sash around him awarded by Professor Bagoan.

“You did!”

“Yeah, I need to see what you guys learned,” Pandora encouraged.

Atlas took out three night blooming flowers from under the desk for them to attach to their outfits. “The theme, inside, there’s like a trident Halos thing going on ahead of the festival. You know, it’s the Solstice tonight, so…”

“Yeah, it’s that time of year already, huh?” Icarus realized.

“It’s gone by so fast,” Pandora sighed.

“Definitely gonna have to have an early night, I’m working all day tomorrow.”

“Let’s go enjoy ourselves, for now,” Mayes encouraged. “Thanks, Atlas.”

“Maybe I’ll see you later,” they replied.

“Definitely,” Icarus grinned.

Pandora gave them a sympathetic look. “I hope you can get a break at some point.”

“Catch us for a dance!”

“Might do. I bet I can dance better than you,” Atlas challenged.

“Don’t think so.”

“He’s got the sash to prove it,” Mayes laughed.

Atlas looked Icarus up and down. “I didn’t need the dance class.”

“Me neither,” Icarus countered. “But…”

“Alright. Do you want to put money on this?”

“Sure.”

“Two gold.”

“Two gold? Fine, three,” Icarus winked.

“Three? Fine. For three gold, I will see you later.”

“Alright, catch you later.”

The students were let inside, and they headed through the curtain to emerge into a courtyard full of music and dancing. Small, floating orbs lit the space in low lighting. Everything was decorated with silks and more of the night blooming flowers, with what looked like real vines strung between columns and tables. Dancing above the entire quad were colorful swirls in the air, projecting images of shooting stars in the night sky. It was a completely romantic visage under the full winter moon glowing in the sky above them.

Most of Delphos was in attendance, with people packed in at tables, and a buffet to one side while crystal fountains of drinks were arranged at another side. Many mentors and tutors stood around the outside, chatting to one another as people danced in the middle. A few couples were already disappearing into corridors for quiet, romantic conversations and a bit of making out.

Pandora and Mayes scanned the room for their dates, and within a few moments, Icarus gestured over to Sasu. “There she is.”

She stood out quite a bit, and Mayes had already found her. “Yeah.”

“Go on!”

Sasu’s furry legs were out underneath a very short chiton embroidered with seashells all the way up it in a light blue. The little tail underneath her chiton was moving rapidly back and forth. She was standing in place, holding a drink and looking around, pretending to be waiting for someone just around the corner.

The three of them approached, but she didn’t notice them. Mayes reached out to tap her on the shoulder, and she jumped. Quickly turning around, she let out a squeal of surprise, her face bursting into a bright smile.

“I’m so sorry we’re late!” Mayes apologized.

“Mayes!”

“Hi!”

“Hi!” She jumped on them, her tail going crazy as she wrapped them in a hug. “I missed you!”

“I missed you too! How was your trip here?”

“It was fine! It was not eventful, so… Not as eventful as your adventures,” she giggled.

“I mean, that’s a good thing.”

“It’s so good to have you here, Sasu,” Pandora greeted.

Icarus grinned. “Yeah, good to see you.”

Noticing the others, she jumped to wrap them both in a hug as well. “You too! This is so exciting, to be in the big city!”

“I was gonna say, how have you found it so far?”

“It’s, uh… big! I didn’t even imagine how big it could possibly be.”

“Did you get here today?” Pandora asked.

“Yeah!”

“Did you have much time to look around?”

“Not yet, no, but I’m here for a couple of days.”

“We can go to the festival tomorrow,” Mayes offered.

Sasu beamed. “Yeah, I would love that! I love festivals so much.”

“We went to your festival, and now you get to come to ours.”

“Oh, this is gonna be so good! I love the atmosphere here!”

Pandora looked around the space again. “It’s really nice, isn’t it…”

“It’s also cool being here at Delphos,” Mayes grinned.

Sasu took in the decorations with wide eyes. “I love this whole… everything! It’s beautiful.”

“They’ve really done it nicely,” Pandora smiled. “Haven’t they?”

“We don’t have anything like this in Eras Minorix.”

“Well, you should probably go and enjoy it,” Icarus encouraged. “Mayes had been taking some dance lessons. So they’ve got some skills to show you.”

“Oh, I love dancing!”

“It’s true,” Mayes smiled. “It was really, really fun. We should go dance.”

Sasu blushed, and gave the other two a nod. “Excuse us…”

“Of course,” Icarus grinned.

Pandora gave the pair a wave. “You guys have fun.”

Sasu grabbed Mayes’ hand excitedly. “Let’s go dance!”

Sasu led them away, pulling them across like she had been desperate to dance with them all night. Mayes turned back over their shoulder to the others. “Catch you later!”

  
  


Mayes and Sasu found their own spot to dance. She swayed with them for a bit, lost in Mayes’ eyes. Although Mayes had struggled a bit during the dance class, their brain seemed to supply all the right moves this time, and Mayes was able to perfectly replicate the beautiful dances they were taught in the class before. Mayes dipped her, and she had stars in her eyes both figuratively and literally as the night sky reflected down on her.

Mayes smiled as they lifted her back up. “You look beautiful.”

They leaned in for a kiss that Sasu happily returned. They continued to sway, and Sasu rested her head on Mayes’ chest.

  
  


As Mayes and Sasu went off, Icarus extended a hand to Pandora. “I know I’m not Alexand- Adrian. I’m not  _ Adrian,” _ he corrected.

Pandora went bright red. “Uh…!”

“But, would you have a dance with me?”

“I’m not very good at dancing…”

“That’s okay. It’s really just moving and wiggling. I’ll lead, okay?”

“Okay… You know I don’t like doing things that I’m not good at!”

Icarus grinned, taking her hand. “We can just say you’re practicing until you can see your boyfriend.”

He led her out to dance, standing a bit away from the other couple to give them their space.

Pandora really had two left feet when it came to dancing, but Icarus was able to carry it, swinging her around until she almost enjoyed it. If the room hadn’t been full of hundreds of people who could be looking at her, Pandora might have been able to have a good time.

“You’re really good at this,” she observed. “Where did you learn to dance?”

“Thanks. Uh, it was kind of one of the things I was taught as a kid.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah. Gotta learn how to dance, impress that kind of person, you know…”

“Well,  _ I’m _ impressed.”

Icarus smiled. “Thank you. It’s good fun.”

As Icarus swayed her around, Pandora saw Alexander. He was dressed fully for the event, wearing a black palla, his hair half up. He was holding a drink in one hand as he chatted. In a moment, Pandora realized the person he was talking to was Adrian. Adrian was dressed in a pair of fine trousers and long black boots, with a loose shirt and a short sleeveless jacket over the top, revealing the billowing sleeves of his shirt. He had a black loose tie around his neck, his hair slicked over to one side.

Pandora gulped. “Oh no.”

Icarus spun her slowly around to see for himself. “That’s your boyfriend.”

“And my mentor!”

“Unfortunately, the two people do exist at the same time,” Icarus teased.

“Very attractively!”

“Pandora. You are one of the most incredibly stunning people I have ever met.”

“...That doesn’t negate the fact that they are both very beautiful right now!”

“Yeah, but also… there are a lot of people who would kill to be in Adrian’s shoes. Go on, just… be yourself.”

“Painfully awkward. Okay.”

“Go on, have fun.”

“You make sure you have fun as well, okay?”

“I will. Catch you later.”

“I’m gonna come find you, and you’re gonna dance me again! You’re going to dance me, because I cannot dance me!”

Icarus smiled. “Will do.”

  
  


Pandora made her way over to the two men. Alexander spotted her first from a short distance away, lighting up with relief. Seeing Alexander’s expression change, Adrian glanced over, his jaw almost completely dropping as she approached. “Pandora!”

“Hi, sorry I’m late…”

“That’s quite okay!”

“Have you been waiting long?”

“Not too long. Your professor was telling me what you were up to, and I was starting to get worried. We both were.”

“Yeah, it was… a rather longer operation than we hoped it would be,” Pandora admitted.

“Well you’re back now. You look incredible, I… wow.”

“Thank you,” she blushed.

Alexander gave her a polite nod. “Glad to see you’re okay.”

“Yeah, like I said, I wasn’t expecting it to be so long that I couldn’t have come back and fully debriefed you on the whole thing.”

“It’s fine, there’s going to be time for that,” he assured her. “You’re back, and I knew the three of you would do perfectly well. I don’t want to take up too much of your time. I’ve been keeping Adrian here company, waiting for you.”

“Thank you. Are you around tomorrow at any point, so we can go over a few things?”

“You should be able to find me in the morning, but then I’ll be at the Delphos stall at the festival.”

“Okay. I’ll see you at some point, then.”

“See you then.”

Adrian took her hand, leading her away. “Can I get you a drink, or…?”

Pandora let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, a drink sounds good.”

“Should we just go straight to the bar? I’m not a dancer…”

“Nor am I!”

“That’s really great news.”

“So good to hear,” Pandora agreed. “Okay, let’s go get drunk. I’ve had a very long day.”

Though Pandora only ended up with one or two drinks, the couple wound down together at the bar as Adrian talked about what he had been doing and asked her about her exams. She left out the bit about the Typhon Assembly, instead suggesting that they had to navigate their way out of the tunnels for twenty four hours after falling in. He was shocked, and completely engaged in the conversation, his eyes on her the whole time.

“I know we both said that we don’t dance,” Pandora began. “But… this might be a bit of a weird request… can we just kind of sway to the music? Can you, like… hold me a bit? I just… I just need to be held right now, I think.”

He took her hand. “Of course. Here…” he pulled her off to the corner of the dance floor to a place out of the spotlight, holding her close in a half-semblance of dancing as they swayed underneath the floating orbs lighting the space.

  
  


After Icarus had passed Pandora off to Adrian, he had made his way straight to the bar. He helped himself to several drinks, and after about forty minutes, Atlas came in to challenge him to the dance off. The half-dragonborn snaked in around the side, tail swaying through the crowd and moving through the outskirts to avoid the crowd in the center before tapping Icarus’s shoulder.

“You and me, dance off?”

“Yeah, obviously,” Icarus agreed. “Good to see you, let’s go.”

Conveniently, some jazzier music had just started. Mayes noticed the pair making their way to the center, and quickly grabbed drinks for themselves and Sasu as they explained what was going on. “Come on, we  _ have _ to see this…”

The dance floor cleared within seconds to make space for them.

“Three gold?” Atlas confirmed.

Icarus grinned. “Yeah, three gold.”

Icarus started reasonably strong, though his muscles were aching from the day’s activities. Atlas threw their hands up, beginning a dance Icarus had never seen before. As it carried on, a few people in the crowd were starting to copy Atlas’s moves.

As the dance continued, Icarus quickly picked up Atlas’s moves, adding his own flair to them. Atlas was keeping up with him, but they were well matched. The crowd started to shout in encouragement, “Yeah, Atlas!” , “Go, Icarus!”

Mayes and Pandora took up the calls for Icarus as well. Lorakai, standing to one side, cupped his hands around his mouth to shout out. “Yeah, Icarus!”

Icarus was doing exceptionally well, but as the song began to end, Atlas pulled out the big guns. He spun around on the floor, sliding into the middle and moonwalking past. Atlas hated crowds, but they loved competitions, and their opponent was forced to back down. Icarus stepped back, applauding and lifting his hands in defeat. “Three gold for you. And I’ll buy you a drink.”

“Thank you very much, sounds good,” they grinned. Suddenly realizing how many people were staring, Atlas quickly headed to the bar. Icarus sat and had a drink with them before they headed off to escape the crowd again, moving off quite smugly to a group of students in their house to rag on Virtus.

The evening continued on. Mayes danced with Pandora and later with Icarus, introducing Sasu to Adrian. Their two personalities were almost polar opposites, but they seemed to get along for the sake of their dates.

  
  


At one point later on, Icarus looked around for Alexis, but he was nowhere to be found. Coming up empty, he slipped past the curtain, wandering around outside. After a while, he noticed Alexis heading up a corridor, moving away from the dance.

Icarus followed. Alexis wasn’t dressed for the Symposium. Strangely, he was heading for the Virtus dorms.

Icarus continued after. From behind, he watched Alexis intimidate his way into the dorms, brushing past the first year assigned to watching the door that night.

Icarus headed into the building. As he watched Alexis climb the stairs, he called out to him. “What are you doing, Lex?”

He stopped, glancing back. “Oh. Uh… was looking for you.”

“Found me.”

“Yeah.”

Icarus stared at him for a moment. “What’s up?”

He gave a half shrug. “I dunno. Just wanted to talk.”

“Okay. Let’s go to my room then?”

“...Sure.”

Icarus led the way to his bedroom. Having been raised by a soldier, Icarus’s room was considerably tidy.

Alexis sat down on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know why I came here, I maybe… shouldn’t.”

“You want a drink?”

“...Yeah.”

Icarus pulled out a bottle of wine from underneath his bed, passing it over.

He took a big swig. “Thanks.”

“That’s okay.”

The pair of them waited in silence for another long moment until Icarus prompted him again. “Sup?”

“Last time we spoke… it didn’t… it didn’t end well.”

“No.”

“And… seeing as you’re leaving, I didn’t want… I didn’t want you to just disappear out of my life, with bad blood.”

“...Appreciate that.”

“So, I guess I just wanted to say sorry. About everything.”

“Me too. …I’ve got something for you. Not as wholesome as an apology, unfortunately.”

“Okay?”

Icarus pulled out the letter he had stolen from Leonida’s office, and passed it over. Alexis took it, looking down at the envelope with his dad’s name on it. He glanced up at Icarus in confusion.

“Hey, ask no questions and you’ll get no lies, huh?” Icarus shrugged. “Read it. It’s just one of a lot that he’s got in his office.”

“Okay…” he opened it up, unfolding the letter. Icarus watched him begin to scan it before leaning forward to read it more seriously. Icarus sat next to him with the bottle of wine. Alexis said nothing, crumpling forward slightly, a hand over his mouth as he stared off.

Icarus nudged his arm with the bottle.

“...I think I knew it,” he admitted. “Think I didn’t wanna know it.”

“Sorry. I didn’t want to keep this from you. I think it’s fair to say that I’m pretty much… in too deep, right now.”

Alexis looked at the floor. “Yeah.”

“So… I just, at least, wanted to let you know that.”

“You’re in some kind of trouble, huh?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’d say so.”

Alexis shook his head, turning to meet his eye. “Please, don’t… get into any worse kind of trouble?”

Icarus gave an apologetic shrug. “I’ll try not to.”

“Don’t fuck up your life, Ic.”

“...I don’t think that choice is mine, anymore.”

Alexis took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fuck… I don’t want to see anything bad happen to you. You matter to me.”

Icarus leaned his arm against his on the bed, taking another swig of the wine.

Alexis continued. “I wanted you to know that… it’s  _ because _ you matter to me, I always kept you at arm’s length.”

“...What?”

“I don’t have to tell you that my dad is a dangerous man, Icarus. And he has plans for me, and I don’t want you anywhere near them.”

“Might give you the same advice that you gave me, then. Don’t let him fuck up your life.”

“I don’t have much choice.”

“Don’t end up like your brother because of him, then.”

Alexis looked him dead in the eye. “I’m gonna try my best not to.”

Icarus gave a solemn nod. “I trust you, okay? Trust me, too?”

“I do. I  _ always _ have,” he swore.

“...Okay.”

They sat in silence as a few more seconds passed.

“You didn’t go to the Symposium, huh?” Icarus guessed.

Alexis gave a low chuckle. “No. Busy, today.”

“...Wanna dance?”

Alexis swallowed, and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Okay.”

Icarus put the wine down, and offered him a hand. They could still hear the faint notes of the music outside carrying in through the window. They slow danced for a while. Eventually, Lex rested his head on Icarus’s chest, hugging him.

He stayed for a while before leaving, giving one last warning. “Don’t get in any bloody trouble.”

With that, he disappeared back off and out of the Virtus Dorms.

Icarus spent the rest of his evening writing a letter to Lorakai.

  
  


The rest of the night passed. Mayes took Sasu back to their dorm, where they shared a nice night together. Pandora and Adrian were a bit too awkward for that yet, but she did invite him up for tea. He had been in the middle of politely offering to leave, but at the suggestion he instantly agreed. They sat next to each other on the bed, growing a bit less awkward after the tea. Respectfully, he didn’t stay the night, though the pair of them were up well past midnight for a good makeout session before he snuck out of the dorm.

  
  


The morning of the Winter Solstice Festival, or as it was locally known in Erran, The Festival of the Trident, came around. The festival celebrated the end of the year, and focused on the choosing of life paths for the new year. It took place on the sixteenth of Nevreyn every year, the first day after the night of the Midwinter Solstice, which was the longest night of the year. It was a celebration that, going forward, the days would be brighter.

The name of the festival was a reference to the Halos, the Calderen Zodiac, with the Trident representing the month of Neveryn. The Trident astrological sign represented the future and possible paths ahead of you. It was a time of year for reflection, and making plans on where to go next, as well as exchanging small tokens and gifts with loved ones to show good luck and fortune for the new year coming.

The festival also had a heavy focus on Avandra, the deity of travel, trade, fate, chance, and luck. All of the temples of Kord, Maglubiyet, and Pelor played a large role in the festivities, inviting people to understand their worship as they put on fancier displays, activities for the kids, and processions throughout the day.

The streets of Erran would soon be flooded with people in colorful pallas, a far sight from the normal white and black tones across the sandstone buildings. People in masks and face paint would decorate themselves with necklaces of shells or late blooming flowers.

Icarus got up early, making his way to the temple of Kord he was most familiar with in preparation for his duties during the festivals. He wore a white robe with a blue sash wrapped around him, embellished with lightning bolts all along the edges. He had face paint in the shape of lightning bolts coming down from his mouth, with little decorations and rings across his body.

He arrived at half past five in the morning, meeting with the clerics he knew incredibly well from his time working there. They greeted him with excitement, calling out his name and offering big hugs all around, but everything was all a rush to get ready.

  
  


Sasu woke Mayes at six in the morning. “I’m excited about the festival!”

Exhausted, Mayes blinked heavily. “Can we just cuddle for a bit first?”

“Okay…”

Before long, Mayes, Sasu, and Pandora made their way over to the Imperial Square at the heart of the festivities, spotting each other as they went.

“Hi!” Pandora smiled.

Mayes turned at the sound. “Hi!”

“How are you guys doing?”

“We’re good.”

“Yeah, we’re really good!” Sasu beamed.

“Excited to see everyone.”

“We had a great night, how about you?”

“Yeah, it was fun,” Pandora smiled. “Do you want to get some breakfast or something?”

“That’d be cool, but where’s Icarus? Where’s Sticky Iccy?” she teased.

“He’s doing some work at the Temple of Kord today.”

“That’s cool! I wanna see the Temple of Kord in Erran, wow!”

“We can go check out the Temple of Kord,” Mayes agreed. “I mean, we kind of want to bring him along at some point anyway…”

“Don’t know how long he’ll be needed for,” Pandora frowned.

“And we need to find Damen at some point too, because he wanted to talk to us.”

“Yeah…”

Sasu bounced up and down. “Let’s go let’s go let’s go!”

She held Mayes’ hand, intertwining their fingers before grabbing Pandora’s hand as well. She marched the two of them through the city, moving ahead eagerly as Mayes called out directions. They stopped for breakfast from a food stall, and headed to the temple.

Sasu hopped up the steps, gasping with delight as she stepped through the doors. Although it was one of a few around the city, it was much bigger than anything they had in Eras Minorix, though Kord was the main deity they worshipped there.

Spotting Icarus lighting candles with a few other clerics across the temple, she shouted out his name. “Icarus!”

Instantly realizing her mistake, she clapped her hands over her mouth. Icarus turned, giving a wave and responding with a much quieter greeting before excusing himself to meet them.

“How are you doing?” Sasu beamed, lowering her voice slightly.

“Yeah, good, how are you guys?”

“Are you busy right now?” Pandora asked. “Because if you’re in the middle of stuff we can come back.”

“But you look really really cool!” Sasu smiled, gesturing to the face paint.

“Yeah, you look great.”

Icarus grinned at the two girls. “Thanks. Nice to be back in my uniform. I’ve got a performance coming up in a bit, but I think I’ve got a little while before then? I’ll go check, okay?”

He went to ask another cleric, and was told that he still had a couple of hours before the performance. The cleric encouraged him to go and enjoy himself. The Kord performance would take place around 11:00, while the bigger events, including the gladiator tryouts and the coronation of the new Armiger, would be later.

“I’ve got a few hours,” Icarus reported to the others. “I’ve got to be back here before 11:00.”

“We should go do some of the local stalls,” Mayes suggested. “I don’t know, get our fortunes read or something.”

Sasu gasped. “That would be really exciting! This city is so  _ big _ and beautiful!”

“So much to see,” Pandora chuckled. “Let’s get going.”

“I’ve never been somewhere where you can’t see the ocean.”

“Yeah, that sucks, right?” Icarus sympathized.

“Yeah, it really sucks… but it’s exciting!”

Sasu’s attitude was infectious, and Icarus couldn’t help but laugh in spite of himself. “Yeah, it is.”

“So, I was reading a scroll that was posted up saying what was going on here. Apparently, there’s loads and loads of market stalls where you can get tokens of good luck, and trinkets, and I’m gonna take some home to my mom and my sister. And, there’s these smoke lanterns- I’m sure you know all this- these smoke lanterns, and they light them, and all the smoke comes out colored and it goes everywhere. And like, blind fortune telling, sticking your hands in jars? Oh, there's so much going on here!”

“We can do all of those things,” Pandora grinned.

“Let’s look at all the market stalls first!”

“Sure, we can do that,” Icarus agreed.

Although the streets were starting to fill up, they were still pretty early to the festivities. People with big colorful masks walked past, wearing seashells that dangled off them as jewelry. Other people stood at corners handing out free tokens of Avandra, and Sasu took everything that was offered, tucking them into a little bag.

“Do you want to try some of this?” Sasu offered out bundles of the typical Errani sweets the students were so used to, taking enthusiastic mouthfuls. “Do you wanna try some?”

“Sure,” Mayes laughed.

“Definitely,” Icarus agreed. “I’ll show you which one is my favorite, okay?”

“Okay!” she beamed.

Icarus had already bought trinkets of his own earlier, but the group wandered around to enjoy the stalls. One booth in particular stuck out to them, with a celestial awning, selling touristy trinkets of the Halos. Each pendant came with a little paper scroll that rolled up and fit inside the necklaces or bracelets. If you wrote your wishes for the new year on the piece of paper, tucked it inside and wore it, your wishes were meant to come true.

As soon as they pointed it out, Sasu bounced towards the stand. “What’s your Halos?”

“The Eagle,” Icarus replied.

“Eagle! Oh, I love this kind of stuff. I find it so romantic.”

“I’m the Sheaf,” Mayes followed.

Sasu nodded, giving Pandora an expectant look.

“I’m the Serpent,” she replied.

Sasu looked at the stall, quickly picking up an Eagle pendant meant to go on the end of a sword. The symbol of the Eagle was the hunting bird in flight with its wings spread. Turning it over, she read off the back. “People born under the sign of the Eagle have endless resources of energy and drive. Must learn how to tame these traits or they risk leaving everyone behind as they fly too high.”

“You do have endless energy,” Mayes grinned.

“Does sound like you,” Pandora teased.

“Says that you’re energetic, determined, and resilient,” Sasu continued. “But also impatient, audacious, and proud.”

Mayes tilted their head in thought. “Yeah, sometimes…”

Icarus laughed, waving them off. “Okay, okay…”

Sasu scanned the table. “Let me find the next one. The sheaf!”

She picked up a bracelet with the symbol of a wheat sheaf on it, turning it over to read the description. “Your strengths are that you’re reliable, determined and calm, and your weaknesses are that you’re exacting, immovable… and hedonistic!”

She giggled at the last one, prompting the others to laugh as Mayes blushed.

Icarus let out a full belly laugh. “I’d say that’s true on all!”

“Me too,” Sasu teased, continuing on. “Synonymous with the Goddess Melora, the symbol of the sheaf is a wheat sheaf. Sheaf signs are strong and reliable year after year, just like the harvest, but also rooted strong and immovable on their standpoints. They can be greedy, too- not for wealth, but for the material pleasures of the world, such as food and love.”

Icarus grinned. “How was your night last night?”

“It was great!”

Icarus smirked at Mayes again while Sasu found the next symbol on a beautiful gold ring, depicting a snake eating its own tail. “The Serpent, okay…”

“That’s cute,” Pandora approved. “I like that.”

“The Serpent. Your strengths are that you’re elegant, logical, and diligent. Your weaknesses are… low self confidence, suspicious, perfectionist.”

Pandora rubbed her face as the others made sounds of agreement.

“This sign is represented by the God Kohr’eylon. The symbol itself is a snake eating its own tail. People born under The Serpent are known to be solitary, indifferent, and always striving for perfection, which cycles through a lack of confidence and suspicion of other people. But they’re modest and elegant, and do not underestimate serpents, because their knowledge and drive to do their best is endless, and they will.”

“A hundred percent,” Icarus grinned.

Pandora rubbed her face. “I feel so called out right now.”

“What about you?”

“Yeah, what are you Sasu?”

She beamed. “My sign is The Open Book. Intelligent, innovative, and kind,” she picked up a necklace with a pendant of an open book, looking at it proudly for a moment before her expression fell into a pout. “But I am… too inquisitive and meddlesome. And it also says I’m lacking in enthusiasm, so that’s not right!”

“That’s wrong,” Mayes laughed. “That’s very wrong.”

“Are you on the cusp between two?” Pandora guessed. “Between The Open Book and something else?”

“Yeah,” Sasu nodded. “Because the other one is The River, and that’s about being compassionate and sensitive, and easily swayed. I’m gonna buy all of these!”

“You don’t have to!” Icarus and Pandora chorused.

“Yes, it’s the Luck Festival!” Sasu argued. “I’m gonna buy you guys trinkets.”

“At least let me buy yours,” Icarus offered.

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed, “Let’s get something for you.”

Sasu grinned. “I’m not gonna say no.”

“One of us can pay for something for you, and one for your sister, and one for your mom.”

“Okay!”

“Another Open Book one for your sister…” Pandora took another necklace from the table. “What’s your mom?”

“My mom is The Crown sign. Passionate, ambitious, and single minded, but scheming, jealous, and competitive. Assertive, decisive, confrontational, and known to plot to get her way. All the time!”

“I need to come visit you sometime,” Mayes chuckled.

“Yeah you do!”

“Need to see this firsthand.”

The trio passed over a gold each for the trinkets.

“I can take these back to them, make them write their wish for the year,” Sasu planned. “It’s gonna be really cute! I just love this stuff. Hopefully our signs match,” she grinned at Mayes.

“Yeah, how compatible are your signs?” Pandora wondered.

Mayes shrugged. “I have no idea how that works.”

“Me neither,” Sasu frowned, gathering up the trinkets. “There’s not that much research into it yet.”

“Maybe you guys can be the ones to test it out,” Icarus grinned.

“Start that research,” Pandora teased.

Sasu looked Mayes up and down, giving them a flirtatious smile. “I think we go pretty well together.”

“I think we do,” Mayes smiled back, squeezing her hand.

“You guys are so cute together,” Pandora declared.

“Thank you!” Sasu planted a big kiss on Mayes, beaming.

Mayes laughed. “We should go check out those fortunes you were talking about.”

Sasu gasped, immediately completely distracted from the previous stall as she stuffed the trinkets away into her pockets, passing out the other pendants she had bought for the others. “Okay, fortunes!”

She dragged them to the next stall. An older satyr man sat behind it. Sasu gave him a nod, and he informed them that it would cost two copper to have their fortunes read.

“Sure, why not,” Icarus fished for the coins. “We’ve already been dragged by, you know, the actual Fates…”

“How does it work?” Mayes asked.

The man leaned forward in his seat. “Okay, so you’re going to take one of these boiled sweets…” he passed out one to each of them, “And you’re going to keep it on your tongue for thirty seconds. And then your tongue will change color, and that will tell you which pot to pick out of.”

“Okay,” Pandora agreed. “Three, two, one…”

The four of them popped the sweets into their mouths in unison. The man watched them as the group stood in silence. The sweets were incredibly sugary, with a touch of lemon.

Eventually, they stuck their tongues out. Icarus looked between Mayes and Pandora, grinning. “Your tongues are green!”

Mayes glanced between Icarus and Sasu. “Yours are red.”

“What does that mean?” Pandora asked.

“Now,” the man waved a hand over the green and red pots on the table, “Simply reach into the pot. Feel around and take whichever stone on the inside feels right.”

Icarus stepped back. “After you, Sasu.”

“Okay!” she stepped to the front, reaching her hand in one pot as Mayes searched in the other.

Mayes pulled out a cold, large, flat stone. Written on it, it read,  _ True love will find you in a very far away place. _

Sasu, paying no attention to Mayes, pulled out another stone. “You must be cunning and bold if you are going to change your luck,” she read, frowning a bit. “Hmm… my luck is pretty good.”

Mayes turned their stone around to show her. “Yeah, and I already have you.”

Sasu beamed. “You’re so cute.”

_ “You’re _ cute.”

“But you did find each other in a far enough place,” Icarus reasoned. “So technically…”

“So it could be true love,” Sasu teased.

Mayes held out their hands. “Who knows.”

“Maybe it’s telling you something you already know,” Pandora offered.

“Maybe so…” Sasu looked down at her stone again. “You must be cunning and bold…”

“I can give you tips on that,” Mayes grinned.

“Yeah! Thank you, um… true lover?”

Sasu and Mayes snickered, stepping back to allow the other two a turn.

Icarus pulled out a stone, turning it over. It read,  _ The Gods will be unmerciful with you. _

Pandora glanced over, noticing his expression fall. “What did you get?”

Silently, he showed the others the stone.

“...Huh.”

“That’s rough,” Mayes offered.

Pandora pulled out a stone of her own, reading it.  _ “Only in hiding can you be truly known to yourself. _ What does that mean?”

“Riddles.”

“Well it’s just a dumb game anyway,” Sasu shrugged. “Thank you!”

She immediately turned away.

As the others followed, Icarus felt the familiar buzz of Damen messaging him through the necklace.  _ “Hey Tadpole, where are you at? I have an idea to get you in.” _

_ “Hey, yeah, we’re in the marketplace right now. I’ve got to go work in a few hours, but, meet you at the Temple of Kord?” _

_ “That’s a no. You can find me at a stall. Look for the line.” _

Icarus replied with laughter.

Mayes glanced back. “You good, Icarus?”

“Sorry, Damen just….” he trailed off in laughter again, covering his face.

“Does he want to meet up?”

“What did he say?” Pandora prompted.

Icarus took a breath, composing himself. “He’s got an idea that will get us in- ”

“Get you in where?” Sasu asked.

“...Um…”

“A party,” Mayes supplied.

“Kind of a party thing, but also kind of a work thing.”

“Mostly a work thing,” Pandora agreed.

“Oh, okay,” Sasu shrugged. “That’s boring.”

“But he…” Icarus snickered again, “The way to find him is, he can’t go anywhere, so we have to look for the line. He’s probably just at a stall.”

“Does he have a booth of himself?” Mayes laughed, turning to Sasu. “Do you want to meet Erran’s famous gladiator?”

“Yes!” Sasu gasped. “You said you’d tell me all about the Maw!”

“We did,” Icarus grinned. “Well let’s go meet Damen then.”

“Oh, this is really exciting. I love celebrities.”

Icarus stopped a few people as they went, asking for directions. “Hey, do you know where the gladiator booth is?”

Various people pointed them down the street until eventually, they spotted a huge line of people.

Icarus laughed again. “Okay, thanks!”

“We skip to the front, right?” Mayes checked.

“Oh yeah.”

“Right, obviously.”

Pandora looked back nervously. “Are we… skipping the line?”

“Yes, he’s our friend, Pandora.”

“We’re not going there for an autograph or a painting,” Icarus reasoned.

“We’re going there for business.”

Across the table, there was a stack of paintings of Damen that he had signed, along with whittled little figurines of himself and toys you could squeeze to reveal bulging muscles in the arms. As they walked past the line, they saw many people holding similar trinkets already, including the little boy they had spoken with about the behir. Felix held his toy proudly, ecstatic for the chance to meet him.

Moving through the crowd towards them was Lord Pešek.

“Hey,” Icarus greeted.

“Hi, how are you doing?”

“Better having slept.”

“I’m sure. You’re here to see Damen.”

“If that’s okay?”

“He asked us over,” Mayes explained.

Pandora looked back to the long line. “I can see he’s kind of busy.”

“Walk straight up in front,” Pešek assured them. “I’m sure he’d be relieved to have to take a five minute break. We’re doing proceeds to a relief effort that helps children off the streets.”

“That's amazing,” Mayes replied.

“What is this line?” Icarus asked. “Is it just to meet him?”

Pešek nodded. “Just to meet him.”

“Wow…”

“How long have these people been waiting?” Pandora wondered.

Pešek shrugged. “It’s been moving fairly quickly, but the line keeps getting longer, so… he’s only gonna be here for two hours.”

“Tight deadline,” Mayes commented.

“Have to make it a quick exchange then,” Pandora replied.

“Don’t want to keep the fans waiting.”

“If you’re around,” Icarus offered, “At about eleven, we’re doing a performance at the Temple of Kord, down the road.”

“I will hopefully be able to catch it,” Pešek replied. “I’ve got a very busy day, but…”

“Yeah, sure. See you around though?”

“And thank you, again,” Pandora added. “So much.”

“No problem,” Pešek replied. “Oh, and Damen is probably gonna tell you, we’ve taken the liberty of signing you up for the gladiator tryouts.”

As three jaws dropped, Pešek walked away.

At the stand, Damen was speaking to the fifth adult in a row, smiling with a bit of effort. “It’s really great to meet you too…”

People were giggling excitedly in line as they waited to meet him, but as Damen noticed the trio approaching his face shifted to relief.

Icarus stepped up to the front, putting a hand dramatically over his chest. “Oh my gosh, I’m  _ such _ a huge fan…”

“Shut up, Tadpole,” Damen grinned, smacking him.

“Mr. Of Erran?” Mayes teased.

“Mr. Lion!” Icarus laughed.

Behind them, someone indignant shouted out. “No line cutting!”

“It’s fine,” Damen waved them off. “They’re my staff.”

Icarus turned around to address the crowd. “He’s taking a break.”

Damen quickly stood a small break sign on the stall itself, turning away. “Oh am I glad to see you, I’ve been here since 7:00am.”

“On this stall with the line through 7:00am?” Pandora clarified. “Wow…”

She wrapped him in a hug, which he returned.

Mayes gestured to Sasu. “This is my girlfriend.”

Damen grinned at her. “Hi.”

Standing to the side, Sasu gasped. “You’re really tall!”

Damen looked her over. “And you are very small.”

“Thanks!”

Pandora gave Damen an accusatory look. “So you signed us up for a tournament, huh?”

“Yes, I managed to pull some strings, and…” he leaned closer, “Make a prize for the tournament be an entry into the event. So all you have to do is not get your asses handed to you. Which, considering I’ve seen what you can do…”

“Easy,” Mayes declared.

“When you say tryouts,” Icarus asked, “Would that be…?”

“Well, the event is full of a bunch of the patrons,” Damen explained. “So it’s gonna be like, you impress them by winning, and then you can speak to them and they can fight over you. Like ducks over a piece of meat.”

Pandora sighed. “Great.”

Icarus looked much more excited by the idea than her. Mayes gave him a nudge.

“Might be a good opportunity, I suppose, Icarus.”

“We do them every few months at the Maw,” Damen shrugged. “But not all the patrons tend to turn up, and it's harder to get through, so. But they’re all gonna be here today.”

“It’s a special one,” Mayes concluded.

Pandora glanced back to Icarus, who was growing more excited by the second. “You could really get your name out there today.”

He grinned. “Cool. That’s… really cool.”

“So what time do we need to be there? I’m guessing, at the Maw?”

“Well, it’s gonna be in a whole… arena thing, outside the actual Colosseum,” Damen explained. “Inside the Colosseum they got all kinds of chariot races and stuff going on today. But, yeah, you just show up outside. You’ll see a couple of half-elves, you might recognize them from the arena, they’re sort of mentoring the potentials. And you can speak to them, and tell them that I sent you.”

“Okay,” Icarus agreed. “What time should we do that?”

“Um… I think it starts at like, midday, or something.”

“Is that a good time for you?” Pandora asked.

“Yeah,” Icarus assured her. “I’ve got a performance at 11:00,” he explained.

“Oh that’s cool,” Damen frowned, apologetic. “I’m sorry I’m not going to be able to see it.”

“You busy at that time?”

“I’ll probably just be finishing up here, but I have to go and find Panos.”

Pandora brightened. “Is Panos here?”

“He’s somewhere, with his mother.”

Icarus nodded. “Well, if you’re free, then… maybe see you then.”

“Maybe see you then. I’m sure I’ll see you at the tryouts.”

“I can run back and grab our stuff,” Mayes offered.

“Yeah, I don’t have anything,” Pandora realized.

“You can bring your own weapons in,” Damen explained, “But no items. So like, no magical items.”

“Can we use magic?”

“You can use magic, yeah.”

“Okay, cool.”

“One of the half-elves, she’s one of our top arcane gladiators… she’ll be very impressed with you, I think. So, magic and your own weapons, but no potions, or that kind of thing.”

“Armour?” Mayes asked.

“No armour.”

“Shields?” Icarus added.

He shrugged. “You can use a shield.”

“Sick.”

“Magic armour?” Pandora worried.

“Yeah, why not,” Damen chuckled. “Go wild. It’s just that the Maw does their own armour stuff, and they’re trying to test you without being bolstered with your special armour and things like that. Sorry, let me just…” he turned back, signing another poster. “Thank you, thank you!”

“We should let you get back to it,” Pandora realized.

“Yeah,” he apologized. “Miss you guys already.”

“Miss you too,” the trio chorused.

Someone leading the little boy from before stepped to the front. Felix looked up at the gladiator from the ground with wide eyes, holding his doll. “Hi, Mr. Thalasse?”

Instantly, Damen brightened up. Though it was less so with the adults, he completely engaged with the kids. “Hi! What can I do for you? You’re a big fan?”

The group strolled away. Suddenly, Icarus looked up, realizing what time it was. “Oh, I gotta go!”

They darted through the busy market and back to the Temple of Kord. Icarus ran up and in through the door. “Hi, hi! I’m here.”

A cleric turned around to greet him. “Good. Quickly, hurry up! You’re needed out on the steps in like, ten minutes.”

“Sorry, sorry. Okay…”

“Good luck!” Pandora called from behind.

“Thanks!”

He slipped in through the back to get ready. Pandora, Mayes, and Sasu found a spot to stand and watch by the front.

Eventually, the clerics of the temple came out. The High Cleric gave a short speech, wishing the crowd good luck. “May Lady Kord be with you.”

They continued to read a few passages from Kord’s holy text. Icarus looked incredibly proud to be standing with the others. After a while, the High Cleric announced that a few of the clerics would like to present a display in honor of Kord.

They called Icarus forward, along with a half-orc who stood at the opposite side of the steps in front of the crowd.

Pandora cheered. “Go Icarus!”

The two clerics bowed to each other, and then began an intricate dance facing each other. Pandora and Mayes recognized the movements from Icarus’s spells to call forth lightning in battle. Soon, above the crowd, a huge thundercloud rolled in. Lightning crackled through it for a bit before it came down to dance around the pair of them, as if the clerics were throwing it and playing with it on the steps. Eventually, the two of them sent the lightning into the middle together before sending it upwards, where it formed the figure of Lady Kord before exploding out into a lightning display and fading away.

The crowd went wild as the thunderous booms and lightning cracks spread across the sky. It was dark for a few moments, but the flashes lit up everyone’s faces. The display lasted only two minutes, but the crowd felt as though they had been watching for an hour.

As it came to a close and the clouds dissipated in the air back to blue, sunny skies, Pandora shouted out over the applause. “That was amazing!”

Icarus and the other clerics gave another bow before jumping on each other, laughing and knocking into each other as they exited.

As he came down from the steps, Pandora ran to Icarus, jumping to throw her arms around his neck. “That was so good!”

“Thank you!”

“It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up!”

“No wonder you’re so good at dancing,” Mayes grinned. “You’ve been doing it for a God.”

“Yeah, well,” Icarus laughed. “Glad it’s over, but that was a lot of fun.”

“What do you want to do now?” Pandora asked.

“Well, we should go get our stuff, right?”

“Real quick,” Mayes agreed.

“And then do these tryouts we’ve been signed up for,” Pandora followed.

Sasu beamed. “It’s gonna be really impressive.”

“Are you gonna be okay to just watch?” Mayes checked. “Or are you gonna do whatever you want?”

“Yeah, I might wander around, do some shopping. Maybe buy some more gifts.”

“But also, this is an idea of what you can see at the Maw,” Icarus encouraged.

“And a chance to see Mayes fight,” Pandora added.

Sasu giggled. “Ooo, that’s gonna be exciting.”

“Let’s run back and grab stuff,” Icarus decided. “Then we can head back in.”

They hurried back to Delphos Academy, gathering up their weapons before heading over to the Maw. Outside of it on the huge stretches of lawn, normally filled with people queuing to get into the Maw itself, was a miniature version of the Maw. It had been set up for the tryouts, with a few columns to one end and seats for spectators on the other. A number of gladiators and city guards who had volunteered for the event were milling around.

There was a table with two half-elves checking people in. Icarus recognized the gladiators as Tarlayla and Joey. Tarlayla was a half-elf in her mid to late thirties with pointy ears and long black hair braided over one shoulder. She had medium brown skin with slightly pinky undertones and dark brown eyes, missing her left pinky finger. She was wearing a long palla in shades of orange fading down into black, sitting back casually with one leg crossed over the other and slightly kicking.

She was laughing with the other one, who was about ten years younger, with broad muscular shoulders, floppy black hair, and warm brown eyes. He wore distinctive gladiator armour, including a shoulder piece with a snake emblem and a belt with a metal snake’s head.

Both of them looked very cheerful, though Tarlayla looked much more extroverted than Joey. Icarus recognized Joey as a melee fighter, while he knew Tarlayla as a magic user.

He stepped up to meet them. “Hi. Damen sent us, he signed us up.”

Tarlayla glanced up. “Oh, Damen said that he’d be sending people! He’s got you somewhere down here on the sheet?”

“Yeah, it’s Icarus, Pandora, and Mayes.”

“Umm…” she scanned a long list of names before handing it over. “Feel free to have a flick through!”

The three of them leaned down, looking past dozens of names in different handwriting. As they looked, they realized everyone had a group name for their gladiator squad.

“Do we have to come up with a group name?” Mayes whispered.

They flicked through, but as they found their names, they realized Damen had filled in a group name for them already.

_ “Pandora, Tadpole, and _ _ Mayes - Ventus Fortunae.” _

Joey leaned forwards, translating the Ancient Errani. “It says, Winds of Fortune.”

“Of course it does,” Icarus chuckled.

“I thought it was pretty cool. Did you come up with that yourselves?”

“Damen did.”

“Never heard that before,” Pandora replied.

Mayes shook their head. “Mr. Of Erran.”

“Well,” Joey shrugged, “It’ll sound cool when the crowds are chanting it, so. If you guys are ready, you can queue up and start. I think there’s like, one more round, and then another group can go in.”

“How does it work?” Pandora asked.

“Basically, there’s gonna be waves of people you’re gonna have to fight off, and you just have to last as long as you can.”

“Okay. Let’s be conservative with spells until we get to anything big, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Icarus smiled. “We got this. It’ll be fine.”

Joey leaned back. “You’re gonna have a great time. You know, it’s not like, clear cut, one winner. There’s gonna be patrons in the crowd, they’re gonna be looking at everybody, and we’ll probably invite you along to a gladiator tryout at the actual Maw anyway if you’re any good. It doesn’t matter how you do, so. And the best group, there’s entry into some event later. Just got added on today.”

“Cool.”

“So what do each of you do?” Talaya asked.

“Pandora’s a fantastic mage,” Icarus offered.

Mayes gave an approving nod. “Absolutely incredible.”

“I heard that you’re Delphos students,” Tarlayla replied. “Must be interesting.”

“Yeah, it’s been fun,” Icarus smiled.

“We’re actually… nearly at the end of it,” Mayes chuckled.

Pandora shook her head in disbelief. “It’s so weird to think.”

“About to graduate,” Icarus explained. “So that’s fun.”

“Amazing,” Talaya grinned. “I did study, but I came from all the way across the other side of the map, so…”

“Oh really? Where from?” Pandora prompted.

“Farrelstadt.”

“Oh wow, that is far away.”

“It’s been a good few years now.”

“Yeah, she’s been hanging around far too long,” Joey teased.

“Stop it,” she waved him off. “And you two?”

“Icarus here is an amazing follower of Kord,” Mayes advertised, “Who shoots lighting from his fingertips.”

“Impressive.”

“And Mayes is a master of deception and sneakery,” Pandora finished.

Joey leaned back, crossing his arms with a grin. “I think you would fill some spaces at the arena amazingly.”

“I hope so,” Icarus replied.

“If you have any questions, or you need water between rounds, you can just give us a shout. We will be watching you carefully, so don’t mess it up!”

“No pressure!” Pandora gulped.

Mayes grinned. “We would never.”

“Is there anything we need to do before we start?”

“Yeah, do we get armour off you guys?” Icarus asked.

Basic leather armour was distributed to the three of them. Unsatisfied with that, Pandora cast two preemptive spells over herself to bolster her defenses.

Mayes was sure to ask Sasu for a good luck kiss before entering.

“It is a festival of luck,” she grinned, kissing them on the cheek before planting another smooch on their mouth.

The three of them made their way to the gates of the makeshift arena. A big stretch of sand was laid out before them, with spectators leaning on the fence around it.

Someone who had cast a spell to make their voice louder was calling out announcements, sitting in between the pillars at the far end of the arena. The half-orc, half-hobgoblin introduced themselves as Moricus Adakis. They had brownish grey skin, dark brown eyes, and a nose that had clearly been broken several times and healed. He had a scar bisecting his left eye, and he seemed pretty good looking.

Icarus knew him as a former gladiator, muscled and battle scarred, and missing a few fingers. Icarus was pretty sure the man had gone into medicine and healing for the Maw after his time fighting. “That guy used to be a really good gladiator. Like, really good.”

“He does look like he’s seen some action,” Pandora whispered back.

His voice boomed out across the crowd. “Right, next up we have Ventus Fortunae! These three are recent Delphos graduates stepping into the arena- ”

“Almost!” Pandora and Mayes corrected.

“Keep your eyes on these three,” he continued, “As they are up against our first wave.”

“Okay guys,” Pandora took a breath. “Let’s do this.”

“We got this,” Icarus smiled.

Straightaway, two hyenas were released into the arena. Jumping over the fences to join them, taking up a formation at the other end of the sand with the hyenas in practiced form, were three city guards with swords and shields preparing to start.

Moricus called out again. “Last out as long as you can! If one of your team members drops out, you can keep going.”

He rang the bell, and the battle began. The guards took formation, hyenas prowling in at the sides.

Mayes charged towards one of the dogs, smacking it with the butt of their sword. The hyena fell to the ground immediately. Surprised by how easy that was, Mayes locked eyes with the nearest soldier, giving them a grin before jumping over the hyena to swipe at them. The hyena yelped, scampering off while Mayes swung into the soldier. The guard looked a bit woozy on their feet already, looking at them in surprise.

“Come on, Icarus!” Mayes called.

As he ran, Icarus summoned his spiritual weapon. The ghostly blade spiraled out towards the hyena, but missed. He took out Lorakai’s sword, pulling out his shield before swinging towards another guard. As the blow made contact, a wave of thunderous energy pushed him back ten feet across the sand. The guard immediately put his hands up, running back towards the fence to hop over. “No no no! I’m out, I’m out!”

The guard by Mayes swung her sword, knocking into them while the other guard tried to attack Icarus, faking one direction before coming in on the other. Icarus easily stepped away. “You put too much weight on the back foot, you need to do the front one.”

“Thanks!” the guard replied.

The remaining hyena ran towards Pandora, trying to bite her. Pandora easily dodged. “Bad dog!”

The hyena whimpered, confused.

Icarus turned back over his shoulder. “Take that back!”

Pandora swung her pendulum, sending out a spell towards the guard by Mayes. As the spell made contact, the guard immediately yielded, heading for the fence as Pandora whacked the hyena with the sheath of her dagger. The hyena whimpered, and fled.

The single guard remaining by Icarus gulped. Mayes quickly stepped up, taking one more whack before the man went down.

“Good job, guys!” Pandora called out.

“Yeah, good job!” Icarus grinned.

Mayes pumped a fist. “Go team!”

The guard pulled themselves to the fence, lumbering towards the medic. “Good job, you two!”

“Sorry!” the others chorused.

The medic seemed to be a very androgenous, slim, pale person. Mayes recognized them as a changeling in their natural form, chatting away with the guards as they healed them up.

“You’re doing a great job!” Icarus called.

The medic reached a hand up, waving to them. The guards cheered, calling out their team name.

“It’s so strange that we have a name,” Mayes chuckled.

“I kind of like it,” Icarus replied.

“Yeah,” Pandora smiled. “It kind of rolls off the tongue.”

The three of them headed back to the far side of the sand as the next wave climbed into the arena.

“Ventus Fortunae made it through the first wave!” Moricus announced. “Next up, we have three Errani Legionnaires.”

The Legionnaires piled in, dressed in their hoplite armour and banging their swords on their shields. Icarus did the same, grinning before lifting his hands to the crowds. “Ventus Fortunae!”

The crowd whooped back, echoing the name.

Mayes studied the Legionnaire in the center for a moment before running up to take a swing. Though their first blow didn’t quite connect, their second did, managing a solid hit.

Icarus went for the one to his left, his spiritual weapon spinning around ahead of him to strike. As it made contact with the Legionnaire, Icarus arrived, slicing in with Lorakai’s sword. Another wave of thunderous energy pushed the beefy hobgoblin soldier skidding back across the sand. They held out their arms for balance, laughing in surprise. Icarus sent out another spell, sending the sound of bells through the soldier’s mind, but he shook it off.

Pandora aimed finger guns at each of their opponents, firing off three balls of fire. As she did, it appeared that she was almost wreathed in flame, shedding out light around her like a firefly.

Tarlayla stood up from where she had been watching at the front, applauding. “Oh my gosh! This is incredible!”

Two of the shots managed to hit while the other went wide. The crowd roared in delight as they watched.

The one in front of Mayes swung at them with his shield, managing a solid whack on their side. After bashing them with the shield, they went in to strike twice with their sword, but Mayes managed to fend off the blows.

The one near Icarus grinned. “You wanna go?”

“Yeah I wanna go,” Icarus laughed.

“Let’s dance, puppy.”

The Legionnaire swung with the spear, but Icarus dodged. He swung in again, and Icarus stepped away. Frustrated, he threw his shield forward, knocking into the triton. “You wiley thing!”

“I’ll let you have that one.”

The third one charged towards Pandora. “You’re mine, Firefly!”

“Come on, hit me, I dare you!” Pandora called back.

The man swung, missing the first try before landing the second. As the blow connected, her earlier defensive spell exploded outwards, sending shards of ice into him as the fire surrounding her burned at him. The hobgoblin stopped, blinking a moment as his fur singed back. “Woah, that’s cool!”

“Right? I’ve never done it before!”

“You should be pleased with that, that’s impressive!”

Mayes attacked again, striking down one more time as the soldier backed away. “Okay! Thought you were a small fry, greatly underestimated you.”

They slunk off the battlefield towards the healer as Mayes headed to attack the next soldier, smacking into them.

Icarus struck in with his sword, pushing the man back with another wave of energy as his spiritual weapon swung in. The man ducked at the last minute, and the ghostly blade flew past his face.

“Scared you, though,” Icarus grinned.

Pandora stabbed her sheathed dagger forwards to another Legionnaire before stepping away. The man tried to swing in retaliation, but missed. As she backed away, she sent another bit of fire off towards him that went wide.

The other Legionnaire ran back to Icarus. “Pesky little thing, aren’t you?”

He managed to hit Icarus with the spear. As he made contact, Icarus let out yet another wave of thunderous energy, once again forcing the man away.

Yet again, the man had to run forward. “You little pest!” He swung again, missing with both his sword and shield. “You slippery little fish!”

The other one left Pandora for Mayes, missing their first attack before managing a little whack with their second try. Their shield rammed into them next, and Mayes managed to step back a bit to avoid the brunt of the force.

Mayes shook their head, delivering one last solid blow before the other man tapped out. The crowd roared.

Icarus tried to hit the remaining soldier, and missed. They were locked in combat, dodging and knocking each other’s swords out of the way. “Hey, who’s wiley now?”

Pandora sent out a spell, forcing arcane energy to shake through the man’s mind before she ran up with her dagger. With a final jab into his arm, the man lifted his hands. “No no, I’m done! You win!”

Icarus offered out a hand to the Legionnaire, shaking it.

“Well fought,” Pandora smiled.

The announcer sitting across the arena called out again. “Ventus Fortunae everybody! I mean, that guy was a captain of the Errani Legions!”

The three Legionnaires slumped over to the healer, sitting down. “Hey Perseus. Yeah, gonna need some healing…”

The students rested a moment, taking a short break before the next round. Icarus’s spiritual weapon faded away, as did the fire surrounding Pandora.

Behind them, Joey leaned in. “You ready for the next round?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Icarus replied.

“You guys are doing exceptionally. I mean, we’ve had quite a few people today who couldn’t get past the hoplites.”

“Great!”

“So we’re gonna throw something crazy at you,” he warned. “Something unique.”

“Do it.”

“Let’s go,” Pandora agreed.

One of the Maw’s lesser known arcane gladiators entered the makeshift arena.

Icarus’s jaw dropped as he recognized who he would be fighting. “Hi!”

“Hi,” the man nodded. He was tall, with dreadlocks and slightly ashen skin. He seemed to have a bit of Goliath blood in him, introducing himself to the others as Aegeus.

“I’ve seen you fight before, you’re really cool.”

“Thank you!”

“This is, like, an honor.”

“I hope you’re looking forward to something… different.”

“Oh yeah.”

“This’ll be fun,” Pandora smiled.

The man took off a few pieces of armour before taking his place at the other side. Before they began, he summoned two ghasts. They appeared humanoid in nature, though somewhat undead.

Icarus gave an approving nod. “That’s cool.”

The man held out his hands. “Are you ready?”

“Yup,” Mayes grinned.

“Let’s go,” Pandora agreed.

The man chuckled. “Let’s do this.”

Mayes tried to get a read on him, but the man just winked. Mayes winked back and charged forward, but missed their first strike with Michio’s sword.

“I think we should leave the dead to rest,” Icarus decided, lifting his symbol of Kord. “Don’t you?”

He called upon Kord’s energy, trying to ward the creatures off. One of them turned away, while the other didn’t seem affected. Icarus moved to Mayes, summoning his spiritual weapon once more as he whacked into the spell caster. The ghast affected by Icarus’s first spell retreated, while the other slashed at Mayes with huge claws. Mayes quickly ducked.

Pandora shouted across the sand. “Mayes, do you want to try something fun?”

“Of course!” Mayes called back.

Pandora began reciting arcane words under her breath, speaking inexplicably quickly. As the spell settled, Mayes found themselves moving much faster than before.

Aegis reached forward and began to cast, summoning something in the middle of the sand. A hideous hound with a monstrous face appeared, with short, non reflective black fur and cherry red glowing eyes. The chilling smell of smoke filled the air as its flexible neck craned around to look at Pandora, revealing an odd, human-like visage. Its ears were short and pointed, curving upwards and away from the rest of its head like horns.

All three of the students recognized the creature as a fae yeth hound. Aegis laughed in Mayes face as the hound charged towards Pandora. Though the creature missed a biting attack, it looked back over its shoulder to see Aegis still chuckling.

Mayes, standing too close to the ghast, suddenly found themselves slightly poisoned by its very presence. Quickly stepping away, they slashed twice with their swords, managing a rather impressive chunk of damage against the spellcaster.

They called back out across the field. “Pandora, I love you! Thank you!”

Though their speech was much faster than usual, Pandora understood. “Have fun!”

In the crowd, Sasu cheered.

Icarus summoned the now familiar water spirits, which darted around him as if swimming through the air. As he sent the spirits forwards, Aegis relented, the yeth hound disappearing as he left the arena.

Icarus’s spiritual weapon travelled after the retreating ghast, carving into its back. In fury, the ghast ran back towards Icarus, trying and failing to bite him. The other lunged at Mayes, but with the help of Pandora’s spell, they managed to quickly slip out of the way.

Pandora sent out another spell, rocking another ghast while Icarus’s spirit guardians relentlessly shook the remaining creatures. Pandora stabbed in with her dagger, jabbing at another while Mayes stepped into the poisonous range of the ghast to attack. Though they missed the first swing, the second sword landed true, and the ghast fell away. Mayes smiled and laughed as they cut the creature down.

Icarus swiped at the other with his shortsword, piercing it with the blade as familiar thunderous energy shoved it backwards. His spiritual weapon swung past as the creature charged forwards again, running directly into the swarm of spirit guardians. As the water nymphs erupted out of the sand through it, it fell to the floor.

Icarus beamed. “Guys!”

The crowd erupted, chanting their name as Moricus did the same. “Ventus Fortunae! They’re doing exceptionally!”

Mayes looked around at the crowd, catching Sasu’s eye. At the front with Tarlayla and Joey, Damen bent down to whisper something to them, nodding.

The announcer continued on. “Okay, who’s up for one more round with Ventus Fortunae?”

“Me!” Icarus called. His water spirits were still circling, challenging the crowd.

The trio had a short break as they waited. Pandora’s spell faded, and Mayes felt a wave of lethargy pass over them for a moment.

“Was that okay?” Pandora worried. “Are you feeling okay?”

“That was  _ amazing,” _ Mayes whispered.

Icarus stared up at the crowd. “Guys, this is so cool.”

“That was so much fun.”

“You’re doing so good Pandora. That spell with the fire?”

“That was incredible.”

“You guys are doing amazing!” she countered. “It’s not even a spell, it just happens now!”

“What?”

“I don’t know, I think I’ve unlocked something in my brain about it.”

Icarus took Pandora’s hands, looking her in the eye. “You are so cool.”

“No, you!”

“But you’re  _ so _ cool,” he turned, looking back at Mayes. “And you, with the super fast?”

“That was so cool Mayes!”

“This is… this is so much fun. This feels like, actually…”

“It’s quite nice to be doing low stakes stuff, something where we’re not going to be graded on it.”

Mayes grinned at Icarus. “This is a taste of your future career.”

Icarus blushed.

“Do you recognize any patrons in the audience or anything?” Pandora wondered.

Icarus scanned the crowd. “Uh, I don’t really know the patrons…”

“Any talent scouts? Gladiators?”

Icarus did notice Cleo in the crowd, the female gladiator patron they had met at Krieos’s place. Looking around further, he noticed a glimpse of blue and horns as Orion moved through the crowd. He caught their eye, holding out a thumbs up. “Good luck!”

“Thanks!” Icarus returned the gesture. “Okay, we got this.”

“I’d say one last round,” Pandora guessed.

The three of them bumped fists all around.

“What else can they possibly throw at us?” Mayes wondered.

Then, entering through the back gate of the columns, came Damianos Thalasse.

The crowd roared, and he roared back. He had his dread helm on, the eyes glowing, and he let out a bellowing lion’s roar across the crowd.

“You sure you want to do this?” Pandora called.

“You sure  _ you _ wanna do this?” he shouted back.

“Three versus one,” Mayes smirked. “Come on.”

Icarus looked like he was about to cry with excitement. “We’re gonna beat your ass, old man.”

The crowd began to quiet down in anticipation. Damen brandished two shortswords, his whip at his side. He readied himself, the eyes of his helmet glowing above his fur pelt. “Bring it on.”

Mayes tried to get a read on him, but it was impossible to tell what Damen was planning. They dashed, running all the way up to him before taking a swing. Grinning at him, the blade connected.

“I’ll let you have that one,” Damen replied.

Mayes gave a nod. “Sure thing.”

The gladiator sent a spell through one of his swords, empowering it before he swung. Though Mayes managed to step slightly to the side, the blade still slammed into them, thrumming with thunderous energy. He swung the second sword, piercing into them once more.

Mayes glanced up at him. “I let you have that one.”

“I’m sure you did,” he grinned, fixing his gaze down the field towards Icarus.

“Hey, you told us we weren’t allowed to wear armour!” Icarus teased.

“Yeah, that’s ‘cuz you’re a little Tadpole!” Damen retorted.

The crowd laughed, taking up the chant. “Tadpole! Tadpole! Tadpole!”

Icarus grinned. “Aw, shut it, Cub.”

His spiritual weapon came into existence once more as he ran. The ghostly blade sped ahead of him, slamming into Damen as the water spirits began to swim past him, appearing through Damianos with a splash. He grunted, but continued to smile at him. “Impressive.”

Icarus grinned. “Eh, it’s just a taste.”

From down the field, Pandora called out. “I saved something new just for you!”

“I look forward to it!” Damen replied.

She rubbed her hands together, creating a sphere of acid in the air. As burning drips sizzled on the floor, she flung it out towards him. As it hit Damen, it expanded out into a twenty foot sphere, sculpting itself safely around Icarus and Mayes.

Damen cringed as the spell faded. “That one kind of hurt!”

“Haven’t tried it before!” she shouted back.

Mayes swung again, and though Damen managed to sidestep, the water spirits continued to giggle as they darted through him. One stroked his cheek as it swam past, and he jerked away from the painful touch.

Damen looked between Mayes and the spirit guardians, and focused back on Icarus. Mayes tried and missed again as Damen ran around to the other side of Icarus, brandishing the more vicious looking of his two shortswords. “Hey, Tadpole.”

He took a swipe, his blade infused with the wrath of Maglubiyet. The blade carved in, managing a thoroughly impressive wound in Icarus’s side. As he yelped in pain, Icarus retaliated with the power of Kord, sending bolts of lightning out towards the gladiator and pushing him back.

With the pain of Damen’s blow, Icarus’s hold on the spirit guardians fell, and the water spirits fell away. “Aw, come on! My girls!”

Recovering from being pushed back, Damen charged up again, slashing into the triton once more as his own spiritual weapon materialized next to Pandora. The double headed axe swirled into the air, swiping into her.

Damen rolled his shoulders. “You guys are starting to wear me out!”

“Shut up,” Icarus grinned. He lunged in with his sword, and though Damen easily dodged, his spiritual weapon swung around to hit Damen on the back of his head.

Damen grunted, throwing the helmet off to look Icarus straight in the eye. “Okay…!”

“It was getting in the way anyway,” Icarus chuckled.

Ignoring Damen’s spiritual weapon next to her, fire swirled up around Pandora. She sent blasts of fire towards the gladiator, refusing to relent. Eventually, Damen crouched down, holding up his hands.

“You can yield at any time!” Pandora yelled.

Damen flinched away from the blows. “Okay! I yield, I yield!”

Icarus put his hand out to him, helping him up. Pandora and Mayes ran over to hug him, and he ruffled their hair, laughing.

“I’m sorry!” Pandora apologized. “Are you okay?”

He patted down the remaining sparks. “Singed my fur a bit there!”

“What possessed you to do that?” Mayes chuckled.

The crowd cheered. "Ventus Fortunae! Yeah!”

“Fancy name,” Mayes commented.

Damen gave a shrug. “I thought it suited.”

“Where did you get that from?” Pandora wondered.

“Um… it was actually Roman’s suggestion, so…”

Icarus’s eyebrows raised. “Oh really?”

“Yeah!”

“What gave him the idea?” Pandora asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “A little bit beat up, but I’ll be okay.” He put two hands on his chest, and divine energy shimmered across him, clearing up most of his injuries in a moment. Grinning, he rubbed Icarus’s hair, pulling him along. “Come on, you.”

“Let’s get you some healing,” Pandora agreed.

“Yeah,” Icarus grinned. “Let’s go to the medic. That gave me kind of a beating.”

Pandora smiled up at Damen. “Yeah, you didn’t hold back.”

Damen shrugged, glancing over to challenge Icarus. “Could have beat you one on one.”

“...Yeah,” Icarus admitted. “Yeah, you would, probably.”

Damen winked at him, and then went off towards his friends.

Pandora urged Icarus along. “Come on, let’s get you healed.”

Icarus had stopped in place, staring after Damen, but Pandora’s voice broke him out of the trance. “I… yeah, yeah? Healing.”

The three of them headed on over to the changeling. The medic seemed to be done with the city guards and Legionnaires from before, and turned to look them over. They had long white hair tucked back neatly, wearing clerical robes in the style of the Maw uniforms. “Good to meet you.”

“And you,” the trio chorused.

“I’m supposing you’re looking for some healing?”

“Yes, please.”

“Is it Perseus?” Pandora asked. “I think I heard them call you that?”

“Perseus Risha,” they bowed.

“Nice to meet you.”

“A pleasure to meet you. So, it seemed like you did exceptionally well.”

“We’re just used to working together now.”

“Yeah, we make a good team,” Mayes grinned.

“You’d definitely make a good team at the arena,” they approved.

Pandora tilted her head. “Are you based at the Maw?”

“Yes, all the time.”

“So exciting,” Icarus grinned. “I think I saw you when Damen got hurt that time.”

“May have passed me. Okay, if you’d like to take a seat?”

“Sure.”

The medic went over their injuries slowly.

“That was so much fun though,” Icarus sighed happily. “That was so much fun…”

“A blast,” Mayes agreed.

“I was very, very impressed,” the medic smiled. “I hope to be treating you in the actual battles at the arena one day.”

“Icarus is gonna be a gladiator.”

“Yeah,” Pandora encouraged. “You were amazing.”

Icarus looked down at the ground, grinning to himself. “Thanks…. Fuck, that was such a dream come true. Can you imagine if I was able to do it  _ at _ the Maw?”

“You will,” Mayes declared.

“I think you’re plenty going to be able to do it at the Maw,” Perseus agreed. “I mean, listen to the crowd. They already want to see you for an encore.”

Icarus looked like he might cry. Pandora hugged him. “Proud of you! I knew you could do it!”

Icarus sniffed, leaning into her. “Wow. That’s really cool…”

Pandora pulled Mayes in. “Group hug!”

Mayes laughed, relenting. “Group hug. Okay, should we find out about this event that we get to go to?”

“Yeah, assuming we did enough to get in?”

“You did plenty,” Perseus assured them. “Nobody else has fought Damianos, let alone win.”

“Great,” Icarus beamed. “Yeah, we should go find him.”

“The coronation first,” Mayes reminded them.

“Oh yeah!” Pandora remembered. “We can see who the new Armiger is!”

“Go, go,” the medic smiled. “Hurry up.”

“Thank you!” they chorused.

Mayes fetched Sasu, bringing her along. Damen had already disappeared into the crowd. Everyone was moving away from the arena, heading to the huge stage that had been set up at one end of the Imperial Plaza for the coronation. With the masses of people, it was impossible to get close, and they had to scoot around to the side to try and get a view of the new Armiger.

“This is history in the making, guys!” Pandora whispered.

“This is so cool,” Mayes agreed. They turned to Sasu, beginning to explain what the Armiger was before she gave them a funny look.

“I know!” she laughed. “I’m from the Errani region too!”

“Oh yeah, of course,” Mayes chuckled, a bit embarrassed.

An unseen announcer projected their voice with magic, announcing the arrival of Imperata Thalia Kezadias.

Pandora gasped. “Oh, no way…”

An ornately dressed hobgoblin woman in her late forties appeared on the stage. She had sharp cheekbones, gold eyes, a pinched nose, and long dark straight hair done half up and half down with a gold jewel encrusted diadem holding a bun at the top. She wore an elegant black palla that sparkled like the night sky with gold and red trim over it. Behind her were several very professional looking Errani guards, dressed in the uniforms for the Imperial Palace. A young woman, likely an aide, walked quietly behind her.

The Imperata came up and onto the stage. “Greetings, Erran. It’s good to be out in front of you all again. I’m here today, as you know, because we recently lost our Armiger, the fourth of Erran, Castor Allandrus. I’d like to take a moment first, for a moment of silence in remembrance of Castor, and everything he did for our city state.”

The crowd went completely silent. After a minute, she spoke again. “We are also here to celebrate the inauguration of our new Armiger. We have to thank this man for his wonderful service to the city, and his charitable works, his relief efforts, and his dedication to the house of Maglubiyet. Lord Roman Pešek has been a bastion of light to Erran, and we could have no greater new Armiger.”

Coming up onto the stage beside her was Lord Pešek. He pushed a hand through his hair, stepping up beside her, and biting his tongue. The trio of students could almost feel the tension between them as they gave each other slightly forced smiles.

“Lord Pešek,” the Imperata continued, “Do you promise to uphold the principles of our nation, and defend it against all foes?”

He nodded his head. “I do.”

“Do you give yourself to the Errani people in all available ways?”

“I do.”

“And do you swear that should Erran fall, you will pledge your days to raising it back to fruition?”

“I do.”

“Please kneel.”

The Imperata pulled out a silvered Errani sword, and touched each of his shoulders with it. The aide came up with a cushion holding a crown of golden laurel leaves, and the Imperata placed it onto his head.

“Rise, Lord Roman Pešek, fifth Armiger of Erran.”

He stood, and the crowd erupted. He nodded his head to everyone.

Sasu put her hands on her head in shock. “I can't believe we just saw that!”

“That’s history,” Icarus and Pandora overlapped.

“You said hello to that guy! You guys know  _ everybody…” _

“Seems that way, huh,” Icarus grinned.

“Oh I’m so dizzy, this is so exciting!”

Mayes held her steady. As they did, Mayes noticed the Imperata’s expression change as she turned away. Her face fell sour as she walked back down the steps. Icarus looked to Roman, noticing that he moved off the stage quickly as well, bristling, and not looking too happy about the situation either.

“Oh… oh gosh,” Icarus frowned.

“What is it?” Pandora asked.

Mayes shook their head. “She’s mad.”

“She’s mad, and he is not happy,” Icarus agreed. “Did you see his face when he came off the stage?”

“No.”

“I was a bit too caught up in everything,” Pandora admitted.

Icarus watched Roman disappear into the crowd. “He looked upset. I suppose maybe after what we told him yesterday, I’d understand.”

“Yeah, I suppose. He knew about it then! He knew he was going to be the new Armiger when we told him that.”

“It’s kind of upsetting to hear.”

“I guess if he’ll be at the party,” Mayes suggested, “We’ll talk to him.”

“Yeah.”

At that moment, they received a sending message in their heads from Joey, the gladiator who had been at the tryouts. He gave them directions to the party, and told them how to get in.  _ “State your group name. Everybody knows who you are, they’ll let you in.” _

“Okay,” Icarus nodded. “We’ll get there.”

Mayes bid Sasu adieu, apologizing that she couldn’t come with them.

“It’s fine!” she beamed. “I’ll buy some more stuff again.”

“See you in a bit, though,” Pandora offered.

“Have fun!”

“You too,” Mayes smiled.

The three of them hurried over to a fine building at the end of the Imperial Square not too far from where the stage had been. The building, once one of the great halls of the original Imperial Palace that had sat here before it was moved further out of the center, had been turned into a meeting space.

Giving their group name at the door, the attendants nodded, welcoming them in. They stepped inside into a light and airy space, cooled by arcane means just like the council building. It had been decorated with plenty of leafy plants and marble statues filling the room. There were a number of gladiators they recognized inside, including Nikostratus and Malachi, all decorated in gold paint. They waited around the sides of the room like living art pieces. Upper class citizens of Erran wandered around in fine pallas dripping with jewelry, while servers offered wine and fruit on silver platters, along with a beautiful, free for all buffet available at one end. Noticing the food, Icarus and Mayes exchanged a look.

Cleo was also in attendance, as was Pešek, though he seemed to be slightly swarmed with people at the moment. Damianos stood with a hobgoblin woman and Panos in one of the other corners. A few of the Councilors, including Adamos and Leonida, stood with various other important figures of Erran. The Imperata was not in attendance.

“I’ve never seen the Imperata that close before,” Pandora whispered.

“I’ve never seen her in person,” Icarus replied.

“I’ve seen her in passing for things, but never like that before. It’s kind of weird.”

“Suddenly this real person instead of just a name, huh?”

“Well… have I told you this? That the woman that was walking behind her… that’s what my mom used to do.”

“Oh! Wow…”

“She was Aide to the Imperata.”

Mayes blinked in surprise. “That’s a lot, Pandora.”

“Yeah, it’s just weird.”

“Well someone as talented as you,” Icarus shrugged, “Makes sense that your mom would do something like that.”

“She was amazing,” Pandora sighed.

“So are you. Definitely your mother’s daughter.”

“My mom though, you didn’t meet my mom. My mom was like, another level of amazing.”

“I’m sure.”

The three of them went for food and drinks, keeping an eye on the people they knew. Mayes scouted around the room, but it didn’t take long before they heard someone lean in to someone else and say, “Hail, friend.”

Mayes turned in time to see someone else, an elven member of the city guard, lean in and reply. “Friend, I am your brother.”

The two of them started moving off down one end of the room.

Mayes elbowed the others. “Activity based on… just follow me.”

The three of them began to nonchalantly make their way through the crowd. As they did, someone tried to sideline them to talk about the Maw.

An older elven man with darker skin and greying hair stepped out. Icarus recognized them as someone who frequented the special guest section of the Maw’s seating, another gladiator patron. “The three of you! I’ve been so looking forward to talking to you, I heard so much about your tryouts…”

The Typhon Members were getting further away, and Mayes continued past. “Um, would you excuse me? I need to go deal with something a moment, but…”

Icarus waved them on, turning to the man himself. “Yeah, we can…”

The patron engaged with Icarus and Pandora, talking money about the Maw, about working as gladiators, and what they might be interested in. He didn’t really give them much of a chance to talk themselves as he continued the one sided discussion.

Mayes followed the two Typhon Members. They passed through a curtain to a different room, and didn’t seem to catch anyone else’s attention as they went. Mayes moved silently, confident that no one had seen them as they pulled aside the curtain. They stopped and listened, watching the pair as they stood.

The two of them spoke quietly before the city guard passed a letter to the finely dressed upper class Errani citizen. The richly dressed man leaned in. “Is it regarding Kondou?”

The guard nodded. “Probably shouldn’t speak about it here.”

“Very well,” the man tucked their letter into a pouch hanging off the sash of their palla.

Mayes was forced to pull away from the curtain and turn back towards the room as the men separated.

The gladiator patron continued to talk Icarus’s ear off about money and accommodations, listing off what he would be able to do for them and asking what they could offer in return without giving them a chance to answer.

Icarus politely nodded along. “Well, I… Yeah… No I get that, but…”

Pandora tried her best to speak with him, but it was impossible to get a word in. “I mean, I haven’t…?”

“Yeah, so but… Oh? What…?”

“That’s not what I…”

Suddenly, the pair of them felt a hand on each of their shoulders as someone came up behind them. They turned to see Adamos saving them from the conversation. “Okay Maximus, I’m sure they’re very interested, I just need to have a discussion with these two.”

He turned them around, moving them away.

“Sorry!” Pandora offered.

“We’ll catch you again later!” Icarus called.

Adamos pulled them away. “Looked like you were suffering a little bit there.”

“Oh my gosh…”

“Thank you so much,” Pandora muttered.

“I’ve never been held verbally hostage before.”

“That’s exactly what that was, wasn’t it?”

“Well, you’re welcome,” he smiled. “I was going to sit down and eat if you’d care to join me?”

“Sure,” Icarus smiled.

“You’re quite the talk of the festival.”

“Thanks!”

“Making quite an impression I guess, taking down Erran’s finest gladiator.”

“It was three against one,” Icarus shrugged. “Not exactly fair.”

“Well, I’m impressed.”

“Thanks. It did feel pretty amazing.”

“I’m glad. I mainly called you over because, Pandora, I wanted to speak with you.”

She glanced up. “Oh, okay?”

“Well, I have already received word that you may be graduating…”

“Yeah. Still need to actually go through with it, and, I won’t believe it until the paper is in my hands!”

“And then you probably still won’t,” Icarus teased.

“No.”

“Well,” Adamos continued, “I was wondering what you were thinking of doing about employment.”

Pandora let out a long breath. “That’s a huge question. Um, I suppose ultimately I wanted to do kind of the same thing that Sephie’s doing…”

He gave a fond smile at the nickname. “Well, as it stands, we may have a position opening up.”

“Really?”

“So, if that would be of interest to you?”

“Wow! I didn’t expect that right out of school…”

“Happens to be somewhat conveniently timed, I suppose.”

“Wow… What sort of thing would it be doing?”

“You’ll have to speak with, um… it’s with one of the other councilors,” he shrugged. “But it’s right in our building, and I’m sure you’ll see your sister a lot. So, if you’d like me to put you forward for that position…”

“Um, wow, I…”

“You come highly, highly recommended from your sister.”

Pandora blushed bright red. “Coming from her, that’s a big deal. She’s… she’s amazing.”

“So are you,” Icarus replied.

“You haven’t met my sister yet.”

“I don’t care, stop selling yourself short.”

Pandora turned back to Adamos. “If I could find out some more about the position, I’d definitely think it over.”

He nodded. “I’ll make sure some information gets sent to you.”

“Thank you.”

A server walked over, asking if Adamos preferred red or white wine. He waved his hand. “Server’s choice.”

The server poured him a glass of red wine, offering the same to the others.

“Um, server’s choice,” Pandora echoed.

“I’ll have red, too,” Icarus replied.

The server poured them both a glass, nodding to them before going on their way.

“I suppose this is the kind of lifestyle that you’d probably have to get used to,” Adamos commented, “If you did join the Council building. Your sister and Roys, they attended quite a few of these.”

“Are they here?” Pandora asked, hopeful.

“They’re not here, I’m afraid.”

“That’s okay. I’m sure they’re very busy.”

“It’s nice to see you again.”

“It’s good to see you too, sir.”

  
  


Meanwhile, the finely dressed Errani citizen began heading out of the room, passing Mayes to head towards the door. Mayes waited until the man had passed, and a flash of green passed through their eyes.

Daichi’s spirit, for the first time, left Mayes’ body. They felt a weight lift off their shoulders as the ghost entered the other man’s body, flashing green through his eyes for a moment.

Mayes heard Daichi’s voice in their head.  _ “What do you want me to do?” _

_ “Stay still for a sec,” _ Mayes replied.

Daichi kept the man still.  _ “Careful, he will know.” _

Mayes reached into the bag, keping out of sight as they slid out the letter.  _ “Walk through the door, keep going for as long as you can, and come back to me.” _

_ “Heard you loud and clear.” _

As Daichi walked the man off, Mayes looked over the letter. Stamped onto the center of it was a symbol of a triangle with a circle in the middle, with beams of light coming out of it. It was the seal of the Typhon Assembly. Mayes quickly tucked the letter away, and returned to the others.

As they did, Adamos looked up, pleased. “Good to see you again.”

“Oh, good to see you too Councilor,” Mayes nodded.

“I’m sorry, I think I’m needed…”

As Adamos excused himself, Icarus waved. “Thank you again for the save!”

He waved back over his shoulder as he went, and the three of them were left alone.

“That was interesting,” Pandora muttered.

Icarus turned to report to Mayes. “Pandora’s got a job offer.”

“Oh, fun,” Mayes approved. “You’re both getting job offers.”

“Things happen in threes,” Pandora replied. “It’s your turn next.”

“We’ll see. I don’t know what kind of offer someone could make that I would take right now.”

“So… what you had to leave to do, was it successful?”

“Yes, it was a very, very good thing.”

“That’s nice. We should talk about it sometime.”

“Later.”

“Should we just go to the buffet?”

“Oh yeah.”

The three of them gorged themselves on the finest food Erran could provide. They hung around for a bit longer, but getting the chance to speak to the people they knew was nearly impossible. Damen was constantly distracted, while most of the gladiators in attendance weren’t really meant to make conversation. Roman was flocked, not left alone for the entire event.

At one point, Panos recognized them, running over. “Hi! Hi!”

“Hi Panos!” Pandora smiled.

Immediately, the hobgoblin woman they assumed must have been his mother quickly schooled him back, keeping him close.

Pandora waved as he was ushered away.

The three of them were sidelined by a few more gladiator patrons, some not quite as talkative as the first one, and some of them worse. The event became quite exhausting after a while.

“Thank you for the offer,” Icarus continually repeated, “But we’ve got a few now, so we’d like to consider it a bit…”

After a few hours, it began to wind down. Damen finally managed to make it over to them, sighing in relief.

“Hey,” Icarus smiled.

“Got what you need?”

Mayes nodded.

“Okay. Then…” he tapped the necklace, “Keep in touch.”

“Will do,” Icarus nodded.

“And slip out, you don’t have to bother with the rest of this.”

“Do you do this all the time?” Pandora asked.

“All the time.”

“Exhausting.”

“Awful,” Icarus agreed. “But kind of fun, though.”

Damen gave the three of them a squeeze on the shoulder. “Good to see you. Go enjoy your day.”

“See you.”

The three of them escaped from the posh event, stepping outside with a sigh.

“Do you guys feel like you can breathe now, for the first time?” Icarus laughed.

Mayes chuckled. “Yeah. This is a lot.”

“So cool.”

“It’s been a huge day,” Pandora agreed.

“That was so cool…”

“Okay, we should find Sasu, but should we… talk about what you found first?”

“Without Sasu around,” Icarus agreed.

“Yes,” Mayes nodded. “Somewhere private.”

“Let’s go find a quiet spot somewhere,” Pandora directed.

“And make sure it’s quiet.”

They did, hiding off in an empty corner.

“So,” Icarus prompted, “What was it?”

“They exchanged a letter, after mentioning something about Kondou,” Mayes explained. “And here’s the letter.”

“That’s the Typhon Assembly,” Icarus whispered in surprise.

“Sure is.”

They flipped it open to read. There was barely anything on the page.

  
  


_ Angelos Kondou - _

_ Set his own beast against him. _

  
  


“It’s the shifter,” Icarus declared.

Pandora glanced up at him. “Do you think they mean  _ the _ beast? The shifter?”

“Or just one of his creatures,” Mayes countered.

“I think it’s the shifter,” Icarus repeated. “Because we overheard them at that place that we were at, saying that they wanted to give the beast one more thing. One more job, and then they’ll get rid of it.”

“And they were clearly not happy with how Kondou was acting during the meeting.”

“So they want to off him behind his back,” Pandora whispered, “By his own organization!”

“And then kill the beast,” Icarus finished. “Two birds, one stone, I guess.”

Mayes shook their head. “This is messed up.”

“It’s a messed up organization.”

“But…” Pandora frowned, “Do we need to do anything about this now?”

“It’s Kondou,” Mayes shrugged.

“Yeah… problems will kind of go away.”

“Not really,” Icarus countered. “I feel like, they’ll just get rid of him and put someone else there. It’s like the hydra itself.”

“We know stuff,” Mayes reasoned, “And we can kind of keep an eye on things. We know what dog whistles to look for. So we can keep an eye, but this isn’t… it’s Kondou. I don’t care about stopping…”

“This isn’t our fight,” Pandora agreed.

Icarus touched his necklace, relaying the information to Damen.  _ “You don’t need ot respond, but, we found a letter. Typhon Assembly. Kondou will have his own beast set against him.” _

Damen’s voice replied.  _ “Never been happier to hear Kondou’s name. Thank you so much.” _

Icarus relayed the reply. “That’s what he said in response. So Damen definitely doesn’t wanna help, we don’t want to help…”

“So we can relax, for now,” Mayes concluded.

“Leave this problem to sort itself out,” Pandora agreed.

“Easy.”

“I think we should still be careful, but… maybe this is out of our hands.”

“Like you said, it’s not our fight.”

“Right,” Icarus stepped forwards, “Should we go find your girlfriend? Might head back and just relax for the rest of the day.”

“Do we want to get rid of that letter as well?” Pandora suggested. “Burn it, or something? Just in case you’re seen with it, or it's found on you?”

“Do you wanna firebolt it?” Mayes grinned.

“Yeah I do.”

Mayes threw it, and Pandora shot a bit of fire at it in the air, flames encircling her once more.

“That's so cool, Pandora,” Mayes grinned.

The paper burned up as they walked away. By the time they found Sasu, it was early evening. The lantern lighting was about to begin. People gathered in the Imperial Square all the way down the main concourse through the city and down to the water.

The four of them headed to the docks, standing out on one of the pontoons. Everybody took a lantern. They were made from paper in all different colors, and as the sun set, everyone lit their lanterns. The tiny flames at the bottom propelled them up and into the air, carrying them over the water and releasing streams of colored smoke as they went.

Thousands of lanterns went up into the air, filling the evening sky with a rainbow of colors over the festival. Icarus reached out, taking Mayes and Pandora’s hand as he watched. They floated off into the distance, down to the sunset on the horizon, leaving a symbolic smear of green over the last rays of the sun.

  
  



	25. Going, Going, Gone, Episode Twenty-Five

They watched the last colors of the smoking lanterns fade away as the sky turned dark. A blanket of stars sat above them, stretching into the horizon in front of them. For once, it felt like a new leaf could be turning over for them all.

“Happy Solstice, everyone,” Mayes smiled.

“Happy Solstice,” Pandora echoed.

Icarus stared up at the sky. “Yeah, happy Solstice.”

Sasu beamed and jumped, startling the others from their reverence. “Yeah, happy Solstice!”

Icarus chuckled. “Yeah, happy Solstice. We should probably… well, I’ve got to get back, anyway.”

“Yeah, it’s getting late,” Pandora agreed.

“Hang on,” Mayes rifled through their bag. “Before the end of the day… gifts.”

Pandora gasped, looking in her own bag. “I almost forgot!”

“It’s been a long day, but…”

Mayes handed all three of them a parcel. Sasu squealed in delight at hers before she had even opened it. “I love it so much! I love it!”

Gifts were exchanged all around. Mayes had gifted Sasu a bracelet with flowers across the chains. She looked absolutely delighted, her tail wagging as she put it on immediately. For once, she calmed down to sigh and admire it. “Mayes, I love it.”

“It just reminded me of you,” Mayes smiled.

She giggled, going red.

For Icarus, Mayes had picked out a metallic hair tie with lightning bolt designs across it. “Your hair is getting bigger and bigger,” Mayes teased. “So I thought maybe you could tame it.”

“I love it!” he grinned. “Thank you!”

“Seems to be your thing, so.”

“Yeah, this is amazing. Thank you so much.”

“It’s okay, you're welcome.”

Mayes had picked out something similar for Pandora. She unwrapped a decorative hair comb, embellished with moon and star designs. “Oh my gosh, Mayes! This is beautiful!” She put it in immediately.

“Pandora, you look so beautiful!” Sasu complimented. “You look so pretty!”

“Your bracelet is so cute as well, Sasu! It really suits you!”

“I’d put mine in,” Icarus offered, “But… it will take a  _ long _ time to put my hair up.”

“That’s fair,” Mayes chuckled. “I will wait for the day.”

“It’ll suit you really well though,” Pandora commented. “I’m sure.”

In the package from Icarus, Mayes pulled out a golden belt buckle shaped in the symbol of Pelor. As they turned it over in their hands, they grew a bit quiet. “You noticed me praying a bit more often.”

“Yeah,” he smiled.

“I… I kind of wanted to talk to you about… how to get into worshipping a God? But I thought it’d be awkward…”

“I mean, you’re doing it.”

“Okay. Thank you…” they held it close before hiding it away.

Pandora pulled out a golden armband with little gemstones across it. At one end, it had a hook and a chain. Icarus pointed to it. “I figured, so you didn’t have to keep pulling your pendant out. You can just attach it.”

Again, Pandora put it on immediately, fumbling around for her crystal to attach it. “Oh my gosh! That’s amazing, that’s so cool!”

The crystal began to hover upwards.

“You are so cool,” Sasu gasped.

“Isn’t she the coolest?” Mayes grinned.

“Probably the coolest girl I’ve ever met in my life!”

Pandora beamed. “Thank you Icarus. That’s amazing.”

“You’re welcome,” he returned.

“Both of you, perfect gifts. And here’s the ones for you two…”

Pandora handed over two gifts, both immaculately wrapped with a wax seal at the top securing nicely arranged twine.

Mayes unwrapped a forgery kit. “Miss Di Rossi…” they grinned. “You’re encouraging me to a life of crime.”

“No! I figured it was kind of in line with your skill set, but something kind of extra,” she argued. “So a new skill to learn, I suppose.”

“I’m already good at calligraphy, so…”

“Exactly!”

“I will have to give that a go. Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome.”

Icarus unwrapped a navigator’s kit.

“I saw how much you enjoyed helping on the ship when we went to Eras Minorix,” she explained. “And I don’t know, I figured it might be fun.”

Icarus took out the sextant and compass. “Thanks, this is… this is really beautiful, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Happy Solstice.”

“Happy Solstice,” the other two chorused.

As the evening wound down, they took a long, leisurely stroll along the coastline and up into the city streets. The evening had turned to revelry, and people were out drinking on terraces outside tavernas, and drunkenly dancing in the streets. Everyone was excited for the start of the new year, and all of the fortune it might bring. People joined gambling games on street corners with dice, and kids ran around way past their bedtimes. The three students were filled with warmth and hope as they made their way back to Delphos.

They returned to the school, bidding each other goodnight. Sasu returned to Mayes’ room for one last night, planning on heading home the following day.

For once, the three of them had a very restful and relaxed night of sleep.

  
  


The next morning, after Icarus had returned to his room from his run, there was a knock on his door.

“Hey kiddo,” Lorakai greeted.

“Hey! Morning.”

“Morning. I just thought that… now you’ve actually got some time, and you don’t need to be running around and doing stuff constantly, we could go out and have breakfast, and tea.”

“Yeah, okay. Let me just get dressed properly.”

“Sure.”

Icarus got dressed, and joined Lorakai to walk into the city. Lorakai strolled along with his cane. “So, I heard that you got those creature parts for your third exam.”

“Did you hear what those creature parts were?”

Lorakai grinned. “A hydra.”

Icarus put up a finger. “An  _ iron- ” _

“An iron scaled hydra. I am blown away, I knew the three of you would do something incredible, and that is something… I mean, they normally send what, like, two dozen city guards to take something like that out? You continue to impress me, every day.”

Icarus smiled. “Thanks.”

“You feeling good about it? You feeling proud of yourself?”

“Yeah, yeah definitely.”

“Good.”

“It was… a lot, but it was worth it.”

They made their way down to the Amaiva tea shop. One of Lorakai’s favorites, it was situated in a side street off the main plaza, a simple and unadorned place that you wouldn’t look at twice if you didn’t know it was there. Light stone surrounded a large window at the front of the shop, with a few sprawling hanging plants that hid the majority of the interior through the glass from the street. A single wooden sign hung over the door, where the name was etched in swirling gold script.

Upon entering, patrons had the choice of high backed wooden chairs at tables, or a number of low benches adorned with throw pillows. It was a more casual rest stop, with low conversation from the half a dozen customers there already quietly sitting together to enjoy the morning, all accompanied by the warm mingling scents of brewing teas. A relaxed and tranquil atmosphere filled the shop.

It was obvious why Lorakai frequented the place, and Icarus had been here with him dozens and dozens of times over the years. The back wall was filled with floor to ceiling shelves of glass jars stuffed with teas from all over the continent, while the glass counter displayed various sweet treats, pastries, candied fruits, and dense syrupy cakes, all of which Lorakai eyed, licking his lips.

“I’ll get this one,” Icarus offered.

“You sure? Okay…”

Lorakai took a seat at one end of the tea shop. As he did, Icarus noticed a message board close to the counter for postings with various jobs that were hiring for local and regional contracts. Similar job boards were seen all over Erran, frequented by mercenaries and people looking to do odd jobs, or people in need of help posting their personal adverts.

Icarus went to the counter, ordering Lorakai’s usual drink with a jasmine dragon ball tea for himself, along with some cake. He perused the board nonchalantly as he stood, glancing over it.

An elderly and affluent halfling woman was looking for someone to play the part of her young, handsome groundskeeper for when her friends visited. She requested that applicants be tall, pleasant to the eye, and happy to work shirtless for fifty gold per day.

There was also a one time job clearing out an infestation of rabid bats from a storage warehouse on the docks, to be rewarded with 120 gold pieces split between the members of whatever team took the job.

Another couple was looking for a children’s party gladiator for their son’s birthday party. Applicants for the position were requested to be good at acting and entertaining children, and to provide their own costume, for a pay of sixty gold pieces.

Bounty hunters were wanted in a township outside of Erran. They were to bring the local governor the head of a monster masquerading as a woman who had been turning people to stone. The pay was 2,000 gold pieces, split between whatever group succeeded.

Finally, a night-time dog walker was needed for a strange dog with two heads that could not be seen in public during the day. Extra pay would be offered to those who did not ask questions, with 5-10 gold pieces per walk.

Icarus pulled off a few of the contact slips, including the dog walking ad, the groundskeeper ad, the notice for the children’s party gladiator, and the bounty hunter job. He paid for Lorakai’s food and drink, and then sat back down.

Lorakai looked delighted to see the cake.

“This place would be out of business if you stopped coming here,” Icarus teased.

“No, no!”

“Yeah.”

“They’ve got plenty of regulars. I did notice you looking at the job board…”

“Yeah…”

“So…?”

“So.”

Lorakai leaned forwards on the table. “How are you feeling about everything?”

“Uh… stressed?”

“Yeah? You wanna talk about it? Is there anything you wanna tell me?”

Icarus sighed. “I didn’t know that I’d have to pay off this debt, before the end of school.”

“You thought it’d be like the last couple of years? Carry over?”

He shook his head. “I guess, I kind of… threw myself into debt, because, I was kind of… I don’t know what to do when I finish.”

“You’re not ready to leave?”

“No.”

“Icarus…” Lorakai sat back, regarding him. “Leaving Delphos doesn’t mean your whole life is gonna change.”

“Yeah, it kind of does. I feel like it will. I mean, I’m gonna have to move out of your place, I’m going to have to find a job, do stuff, there’s a lot that… I guess I was kind of giving myself a mental safety net, thinking that I would be able to keep doing Delphos things.”

“I get that. Must be scary. Look, you can come stay with me for awhile, and we’ll make the transition slower…”

“No, it’s fine. You’ve got lady friends,” he chuckled.

“Speaking of…”

“Oh my god…”

“You remember Thia, don’t you? One of my old military buddies?”

Icarus raised a brow. “Yeah, she was like,  _ call me grandma!” _

“...Yeah…”

“And I was like,  _ no!” _

“Lovely satyr lady. Good with her hands…”

“Okay, okay! Yeah!”

“So you’re very welcome to come stay back in the apartment,” Lorakai continued, “But not for a couple of days, while she visits.”

Icarus shook his head in disbelief.  _ “Grandma Thia?” _

“She’s not a grandma! She’s actually very funny, and I think she was just playing a joke on you that went straight over your head. Because you were, like…”

“Thirteen, fourteen!”

“So, she’s coming,” Lorakai finished. “Couple of days. Maybe you can stay with your friends if you’re planning on leaving your room, until then. But anyway, anyway, back to the debt. How are you planning on repaying this?”

“I don’t know, I’ve just picked up some job board things. I’ll try to get some money towards that.”

“It’s a lot of money for fourteen days, including today.”

“I know…”

“I was just thinking, maybe… I can pull some strings- ”

“No.”

“If I could get you some more time to pay it off- ”

“No. No, I don’t need strings to be pulled, and… no. I don’t need any more handouts from the school, I just need to get my act together.”

“...Okay. Well then, after tea, I best see you going to Sebaste’s office. See if you can get anything.”

Icarus waved the slips of paper. “I got these. This person just wants someone to have no shirt, so. I can do that.”

Lorakai chuckled. “A great plan, a great plan.”

The conversation moved on, and the pair of them finished up with their tea.

  
  


After an hour, they returned to the school, running into the others as they walked through the quad.

“Morning,” Mayes greeted.

“Hi,” Pandora smiled.

“Hi,” Icarus returned, glancing back to Lorakai. “Catch you later?”

“See you later,” he waved.

“Bye, Lorakai!” Mayes called.

“Bye!”

Mayes gave Icarus a look. “You good?”

“Yeah, yeah, just tea with Lorakai,” he shrugged. “Picked up some slips for potential jobs in the future. Good fun.”

“Full time stuff?” Pandora asked.

“No no, just little personal contracts people have got. Trying to clear some of this debt,” he chuckled, quickly moving on. “Anyway, what are you guys up to? I’m going to go to Sebaste’s office, see if there’s anything I can do…”

Mayes glanced over to the tiefling. “Don’t you have a bit of debt left too, Pandora?”

“Yeah, I have a bit left,” she confirmed. “So yeah, I’ll come with you.”

“I’m clear, but I’m happy to help.”

“Sure, okay,” Icarus agreed.

“We know we work well together!” Pandora sang.

“We do. Okay, that’ll be good. Let’s do that. Where’s Sasu?”

“Oh, she had to go early this morning,” Mayes explained.

“Aw,” Pandora frowned. “It was nice to have her here, though.”

“It was nice to have her here. And hopefully I can go visit at some point too.”

“You should do that,” Icarus approved. “Okay, let’s go see Mr. Sebaste.”

As they arrived, they watched another group of students leave his office, wearing plain clothes and holding a contract. As soon as the group left the hallway, the trio knocked and entered.

“Come in!” he called. “Yes!”

“Morning Sebaste,” Mayes greeted.

“Oh, it’s been nonstop…”

“You look stressed,” Pandora sympathized. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay, I’m okay, it’s just that there’s students left right and center trying to clear debt before the end of the year, and- ”

“Speaking of,” Icarus gave a guilty smile.

“We’re here to try and clear our debt before the end of the year,” Pandora apologized.

“I figured that might be why you were here,” Sebaste replied.

“Is there anything left?”

“Not anything immediate.”

Icarus blinked. “What?”

“Well, with about a hundred students graduating this year trying to clear their debt, there’s not much coming in. Not as fast as it’s going out. But, um…”

“Is there nothing? Do you know of any that might be coming in?”

“There’s something coming in later in the week?”

“Can you please hold things for me?”

Sebaste grimaced. “I’d love to say that I can, but I’ve got so many students to deal with. Um… I’ll tell you what, there is a personal matter that I need seen to that I think I might be too busy to get done today. If you would be able to help me with it?”

“Yeah,” Pandora agreed. “What is it?”

“Well, um, as a sort of thing on the side of the school… I do a lot of auctions.”

“Okay…”

“I’m a big fan of the antiques business, bidding on different items and putting them up for auction. I was going to head to one later today that happens to be on, but I don’t think I’m going to have the time. I did, however, promise a friend that I would pick something up for him and deliver it to the auction, if you’d be able to do that for me.”

“Of course,” Mayes nodded. “Where’s this friend?”

“Uh, he is in the Imperial Plaza. He owns a backsmith. I could give you directions over there. His name is Ruben Avano, centaur, very nice guy. And then perhaps, if you’re there, you could stay for the auction and… see if there’s any magical clocks?”

“Clocks?” Pandora repeated.

“I’m a big fan of magical clocks.”

“I didn’t know that was a thing,” Mayes chuckled.

“Well you see, we have all of our sundials here in Erran, but from way up north in Elenithil and Shadebourne they’re constantly improving the clock mechanism, and I find it absolutely fascinating.”

“It makes sense,” Icarus considered. “They have shorter days.”

“Less sun,” Pandora nodded. “Cloudy.”

“Sundial stops being useful when it’s dark,” Sebaste grinned. “And it doesn’t tell the time at night. So, I can give you a scroll that says you’re doing this for me…” he lit up with the idea that he wouldn’t have to miss the auction, digging down to pull out a personal case and pulling out a scroll. “You don’t have to worry about having the money to bid on something, they know me there.”

“Say it’s for you?” Icarus guessed.

“Say it’s for me, and take this as proof…” he signed off on the scroll, handing it over to them. “And I’ll see about paying you for that, for starters.”

“Thank you very much,” Mayes replied.

“No problem at all. The shop is called  _ The Iron Horseshoe, _ and you’ll find it on the pier off the plaza.”

“And the auction house?” Pandora prompted.

“The auction house is called  _ The Opus Auction House _ in the Avenia District at the far end of the city. That’s a relief…”

“Same,” Icarus returned. “Thank you.”

“Do you have any upper bid limit?” Pandora wondered. “For if we do find any clocks?”

“Hmm…” Sebaste paused a moment, thinking. “Probably 1,000 gold.”

“Wow, okay. Do they tend to go for that sort of price?”

“They can.”

“Wow, okay.”

“It’s a very busy business.”

Icarus was shocked. “...Cool. Cool. We’ll catch you in a bit, then.”

“Thank you very much.”

“See you later,” Pandora waved.

The three of them turned and exited his office. As they did, Icarus shook his head in disbelief. “How much does his job pay?”

“I don’t know, but he seems to be here like all the time.”

“Has anyone seen him sleep? Has that office ever been closed?”

“Not that I know of.”

“I’ve never seen him leave,” Mayes chuckled. “Don’t think about it too much.”

Icarus looked at the door suspiciously. “No, I’m gonna!”

“People can have hobbies,” Pandora argued.

“Not when they don’t leave! How does he have this?”

“Don’t question him,” Mayes teased.

The three of them headed out of Delphos and back towards the Imperial Plaza. They split off to do a quick circle of the area, and Icarus found it quickly, returning to the others to guide them over. It was a fairly simple looking blacksmith, with open wooden doors facing out and into the Plaza. The heat haze poured out while the sound of metal being pummeled into shape rang from the inside. It was quite a large place, made large enough for a centaur to do his work from the inside.

As the three of them moved towards the entrance, they saw a tall, dark, ashy skinned man with a darker, almost black horse body at the back. He had short cropped curly dark hair, looking around his late thirties, with a very very muscular and slightly heavier set body. He had warm brown eyes, and a tough looking body with a very friendly face full of gold piercings. He smiled even as he worked, with multiple belts and straps hanging off the human part of his torso to hold tools and a couple of different swords. There was a blue sash draped around him under his hips.

Icarus stepped forward. “Hi, Mr. Avano? Sir?”

The man turned around, offering a big warm smile that gave off a chill, calm aura. “What can I do for you?”

“Mr. Sebaste sent us from Delphos.”

“Sebaste! Little satyr guy! Long scraggly beard! Absolutely.”

“He’s the one,” Pandora smiled. “He said that you needed something delivered to the auction house.”

“Ah, he sent you in his stead. Must be very busy at this time of year.”

“Very busy,” Mayes echoed.

Icarus leaned in. “Have you seen him outside of the school?”

The centaur blinked. “Of course.”

“When?” Mayes pressed.

“In the evenings? He’s a drinking buddy of mine.”

Mayes shook their head, muttering to themselves. “He drinks?”

“So he does leave,” Pandora murmured.

“I’ve just never seen him outside of the school,” Icarus explained.

“He’s quite the drinking fiend,” Ruben laughed.

_ “Really?” _

“Oh yeah, really really masterful gambler.”

_ “What?! _ Wow...”

“It’s how we made friends, actually. He beat my husband in a gambling competition, and they instantly hit it off.”

The three students stood in shock. “I’m learning so much today,” Mayes laughed. “I thought school was over.”

“Never stop learning, Mayes,” Pandora joked. “Ever.”

“Ever.”

Icarus shook his head. “Anyway…”

“We’re here to pick up your package.”

“Of course,” the centaur turned. “Let me get that for you, and I will make sure it’s wrapped up, you can take it over to the Opus Auction House. That would be fantastic.”

His hooves clicked on the floor as he went into the back, returning with a longsword wrapped in a beautiful studded leather case. “The auction is later today, you’ve got probably a couple of hours if you don’t want to run straight over there. I really appreciate you doing this. Don’t know if Sebaste is paying you or not, but here…” he handed them five gold each for their trouble.

“Thanks!” the three of them chorused.

Mayes looked down at the sword. “What is it? So we know what to tell them when we get there.”

“It is a moon touched sword,” he explained. “Here, let me show you…”

“What does it do?” Pandora wondered.

He turned around, heading to the doors of the blacksmith before pulling them shut and sending the place into relative darkness. He unwrapped the sheath, bringing out the sword. It began to emit bright moonlight into the area, glowing like a starry night sky.

“That’s amazing!”

“One of my finest works,” he smiled proudly, sliding it shut again.

“It’s beautiful.”

“That’s incredible,” Icarus followed. “Wow…”

“Thank you very much,” he grinned. “I’m proud of it.”

“Yeah, you should be!”

“Is there a starting bid that you want us to tell them about?” Pandora asked.

“Starting bid would be 150 gold pieces,” he replied. “But I don’t expect that I’ll sell it for that.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Icarus agreed.

“Exceptionally made,” Pandora seconded.

He passed it over to them, and Icarus took it carefully. “Wow… wow.”

“Should we put it in the bag?”

“Yes!”

Icarus fed the long sword into their new Bag of Holding. The blacksmith’s eyes went wide as the tiny bag somehow managed to fit the blade. “Very impressive.”

“It’s handy,” Pandora shrugged. “Means I can keep my hands free.”

“Well then. Please, take your time getting over there, but if you ever need any blacksmithing work done… don’t forget about  _ The Iron Horseshoe.” _

They chorused their agreement and thanks, and the man sent them on their way back out into the bright sunlight.

“Okay,” Pandora began, “Do we head over there, or is there anything that anyone needs to do?”

“Don’t have anything immediate,” Mayes shrugged.

“We can just hang out,” Icarus suggested. “Or if we want to head over, maybe we can look at the stuff, see if they’ve got any clocks.”

“Meander?”

“Yeah, we can go browse.”

They made their way slowly across the city, walking for about an hour through the sun baked streets of Erran, enjoying the heat haze that wasn’t too overwhelming this late in the year.

Eventually, they arrived in the Avenia District. It was a quiet and residential district in the northeast of the city, completely removed from the hustle and bustle around Delphos. The auction house itself was plain and unassuming on the outside, with a little sign in the front designating it as  _ The Opus Auction House. _ It was a relatively large building for how plain it was, and as they stepped in, they noticed it was cool inside with beautiful black and white mosaic floors and sandstone columns going all the way down the front entrance hall towards a large room in the back, divided off by curtains covering the archway.

It was the largest auction house in Erran, well known for selling the most interesting magical items, and often for selling many items that came from around the continent. While smaller auction houses sold items locally made, the Opus Auction House bought in items from Elenithil, Shadebourne, and Marlborough. Over the last few years, there had been a back and forth rumor of some slightly less than legal dealings happening here, but nothing had ever been confirmed.

“Wonder if this place is as shady as people say it is,” Icarus whispered.

“Yeah, I’ve never been here, but I’ve heard a lot about it,” Pandora replied.

“Same.”

Mayes raised a brow. “People say this place is shady?”

“Well, no one has been able to prove anything, but yeah. Apparently, there’s a lot of, you know…”

“Dodgy dealings behind the scenes,” Pandora finished.

Mayes nodded slowly. “Okay… I guess we keep our eyes out for that sort of thing.”

“Yeah, because this is the biggest one,” Icarus added.

“Yeah, I know they get in a lot of magical items.”

“And stuff not from Erran, not local.”

“I don’t know, maybe there’s something that we can afford.”

“Maybe.”

They headed inside, speaking to a plainly dressed attendant about the sword itself. The attendant opened a long scroll with all the details of what would be up for the auction. Finding Ruben’s name, they checked over the sword to make sure it fit the description, and seemed very impressed with the quality.

“Also,” Icarus added, “We’re here under the name for Sebaste Auron.”

“Ah, Sebaste!” they grinned. “Of course!”

“...Of course? How often does he come here?”

“Oh, often weekly.”

“When?”

Pandora nudged him. “He’s allowed to have a life outside of school.”

“I just don’t believe it! But yeah, we’ll be bidding on his behalf, so we wanted to see if there’s any interesting items that he would be interested in.”

Mayes showed them the scroll, and the attendant nodded. “Great, great. Well, I can give you this…” they handed over a pamphlet scroll that listed the times each item would be going up for auction. “Please, there’s some on display through the curtain if you want to go and take a look around. And I’ll give you these…” they handed out three golden bands to signify that they were bidders rather than spectators. “Go in, help yourself to refreshments.”

At the mention of food, Icarus perked up. “I will, thank you!”

They pushed through the heavy black curtains into the main auction room, a long, rectangular space with staircases at both ends that went up to a mezzanine balcony level for people to spectate. People looking for entertainment would come to see the rich residents of Erran have bidding wars on fantastical items from across the seas.

There was a bar down at one end with peanuts and dolmades. Icarus hurried over, dipping a few dolmades in olive oil and filling his plate.

The ceiling of the auction house had been beautifully painted with effigies of the Gods. Kord was among them, in a similar silhouette to what Icarus had seen in the green flash. An image of Pelor was depicted with the rising sun, opposite the clouds around Kord. Other Gods were dotted around, including a beautiful mural dedicated to Melora with stretches of white flowers across green leaves at the bottom.

It was quite early, and there weren’t too many other people there yet as the trio milled about. Taking some snacks and drinks, they browsed around with their pamphlet scrolls. While Icarus was thoroughly distracted by the dolmades, Mayes and Pandora looked around at the items with excitement. They read out the names of a few items, including a Rod of Wonder, a Potion of Tongues, and a Sun Blade.

On one plinth, they saw what looked like a piece of driftwood with bright green filament running through it. It throbbed with arcane energy. Pandora recognized the feeling of healing magic, identifying the item on the list. “Oh, this is cool. It’s a Wand of Cure Wounds!”

Looking back at the pamphlet, they saw that the bidding started at 1,000 gold.

“I got 25,” Icarus shrugged.

“I’ve got 64,” Mayes chuckled.

Pandora looked away. “I’ve got like 200, but…”

Icarus whirled around. “You have 200?”

“She’s responsible,” Mayes reasoned.

“Yeah, I budget,” Pandora explained.

Icarus shook his head. “Can’t relate.”

They came up to another plinth. Though at first it seemed empty, they eventually noticed the slightest shape of a ring identical to the stone of the plinth itself sitting on top of it. Going down the scroll, they noticed an item titled  _ Ring of Chameleon Power. _ The description explained that the ring would camouflage a person and their clothing to look like whatever they were standing in front of. Bidding started at 10,000 gold pieces.

On another plinth sat a book titled  _ Tome of Leadership and Influence. _ Pandora detected a magical aura radiating from it. “I think I’ve heard about this. You can give an inspiring speech, and it makes people fight better.”

“Icarus does that anyway,” Mayes teased.

They checked the scroll. Bidding for the book started at 130,000 gold pieces.

Amongst other things, including the Sun Blade, Potion of Tongues, and another wand with eagle feathers worked into the shape of it, they found an amulet with a question mark on the label. On the scroll, it explained that the beautiful amulet seemed to have turning parts like an astrolabe would have, and apparently had something to do with travel between planes. However, the person who had put it up for bidding had never been able to understand the inscription on the back of it.

The three of them glanced over the inscription. Pandora frowned, wondering if it was an inscription at all, or just decorative. After a moment, Icarus and Mayes realized that it was written in the same language as the Book of Moirai.

Icarus let out a low breath. “Wow…”

Pandora glanced up. “What?”

“It’s written in Celestial.”

“Oh really?”

“Just like the book we gave to Helena,” Mayes explained.

“Of course it is!”

“It’s just so pretty,” Icarus sighed.

“I thought it was just fancy little swirls.”

“It does look like that, huh. Wow, that’s incredible.”

Finally, down the far end of the room, there was a large nine foot curtain arranged around a square rail. One of the attendants walked over, pulling back the curtain to put something on display. Not dissimilar to the crystal minotaur they had fought, the attendant laid out a crystal golem. About three times the width of a person, the lights floating above on the ceiling reflected off it, throwing shadows and reflecting light back on the floor. The scroll explained that the crystal golem could be attuned to the buyer for them to control and use for their own wishes.

“That’s quite the bodyguard,” Pandora commented.

“How much is that, do you think?” Icarus wondered. “If the book was like, 100,000.”

They consulted the scroll. Strangely, the bidding was to start at merely 100 gold.

“Hey Pandora… you could have a golem.”

Pandora eyed it. “I mean… I’ve never found myself in want of one, but…”

“But look at how nice it is!”

“It’s very shiny…”

Finally, they spotted a golden handed clock with two buttons at the top of it. Over the clock face, there was a semi-translucent mesh green that could be opened. It was currently opened for the display, revealing arms inside with little hands, and even smaller arms on top of those. It seemed to be telling the time perfectly, ticking quite loudly and thrumming with an arcane energy. Pandora realized that the clock likely had the ability to manipulate time itself for short periods, slowing it down or speeding it up in the way she had empowered Mayes the day before. “This is giving me like, Haste vibes! And the opposite! I don’t know, maybe you can speed up or slow time down.”

“That’s cool,” Mayes approved.

“That sounds like something Sebaste would be interested in,” Icarus decided. “What’s it going for?”

Checking the scroll, the starting bid for the clock was 250 gold. The clock apparently had several powers, including the ability to release a large pulse of energy that would slow time in an area in front of the user. It also had the ability to modify memories.

A dragonborn attendant with flecks of gold and green scales made their way over to the group. “Is there anything that you’re interested in?”

“The clock,” Icarus replied.

“Fantastic. That will be the third item that we’ll run the bidding for.”

“Excellent. We’re here for Sebaste Auron. His maximum bid for that would be 1,000 gold.”

They nodded. “Good to know, thank you. The bidding will start shortly.”

“We should go get a seat,” Pandora urged the others.

The three of them readied themselves as the hall began to fill up with people looking around. After about half an hour, a bell rang to signify the start of the auction. The same dragonborn who had spoken to them stood up as the auctioneer.

The first item up was a Figure of Wondrous Power. The bidding went on for nineteen minutes as the crowd bid up from 2,000 gold pieces to 9,100 gold pieces.

“It’s kind of exciting,” Pandora whispered.

Icarus squinted at the quickly speaking dragonborn. “Can you understand him?”

“Not exactly…”

“I think if I was Hasted, I could understand,” Mayes teased.

Icarus raised a brow. “Is  _ he _ hasted?”

“Maybe.”

The next item up was a Potion of Nondetection. The bidding started at 650 gold. The auctioneer began speaking quickly once more. “And 650 gold? 650 gold? I have 650, okay 700 gold? 700? I have 700 gold…”

The bidding went on for three more minutes before it was sold. “And sold! The Potion of Nondetection for 850 gold pieces!”

Icarus shook his head. “Does anyone else feel like, drunk?”

“I’m exhausted,” Pandora agreed.

The third item up was the clock. The auctioneer announced it as The Hand Clock of Time, starting the bidding at 250 gold pieces.

“Okay, we have to be ready for this one,” Mayes encouraged.

Icarus sat forwards. “Oh god, we gotta be fast, right?”

“Maybe just one of us should hold up the paddle,” Pandora realized.

“Who’s the fastest?”

“Mayes.”

“Bidding starts at 250 gold pieces,” the announcer continued. “Can we get an initial starting bid?”

Mayes raised their paddle.

“Can we get 275 gold pieces?”

Someone else raised their paddle.

“295 gold pieces?”

Mayes raised the paddle again.

“Right over there, okay, 305 gold pieces! Can I get 305 gold pieces?”

Another person put up their paddle.

“310 gold pieces?”

The bidding went around for a few more rounds. As Mayes concentrated, the others glanced around the room. It was rather dark in the space, with an arcane spotlight on the auctioneer in the center. Icarus glared at the other clock bidders.

“425 gold pieces?” the auctioneer continued.

Mayes stuck their paddle upwards again.

“435 gold pieces?”

Mayes continued to lift their paddle as the auctioneer went up in increments of ten gold, but it didn’t seem like anyone wanted to stop bidding yet. Looking around, Mayes realized with disdain that one of the people bidding was the older gladiator patron who wouldn’t stop talking to them at the Solstice party.

Icarus slapped Mayes on the back. “You got this.”

Mayes clocked eyes with the older man. Though he looked like he was about to try and intimidate Mayes out of the race, Daichi caused Mayes’ eyes to flicker green, and the man quickly lowered his paddle.

As he did, the three of them looked past him to see the dark purple skin and white hair of a female drow. Medea Callalli was at the auction, her arms folded as she casually leaned against one of the walls. She was holding a paddle, though she hadn’t bid on anything yet. She didn’t seem to have noticed them.

Mayes leaned in towards Icarus. “Medea’s here.”

“Medea?” he quickly turned to Pandora, passing on the news. “Medea’s here. Keep our heads low.”

“She’s past the guy who was bothering you yesterday,” Mayes explained.

“Concentrate on the bidding,” Pandora whispered back.

The auction continued. “510 gold pieces?”

Mayes raised their paddle. The auction went on for another five minutes. The price was pushed up to 725 gold pieces, but the last other bidder eventually pulled out. “Eh, I fold.”

The auctioneer brought down his little gold hammer. “725 gold pieces, the Hand Clock of Time goes to Sebaste Auron.”

The three of them exchange high fives.

“Amazing!” Pandora congratulated Mayes. “I’m exhausted.”

“Now we can relax,” they replied. “Well, apart from the Medea situation.”

“Yeah,” Icarus frowned. “I want to see what she’s here for. Let’s just kick back and wait.”

“Try not to be conspicuous,” Pandora advised. “Says the orange tiefling.”

“And the blue guy.”

Mayes shrugged. “I can just go to the back of the room and keep an eye on her.”

“Oh wow, that’s so nice for  _ some _ people…”

A few more items went up, including a Light Flail. A thrum of power and strength emanated from the arcane weapon, and the bidding began at 18,000 gold pieces. Later, the Moon Touched Sword went for 950 gold.

Finally, the Crystal Golem went up, starting at 100 gold pieces. The auctioneer addressed the crowd. “Can I get 100 gold pieces? Can I get 100 gold?”

Medea raised the paddle.

“Okay, can I get 125 gold pieces?”

The mage looked around the room, pleased with the lack of competitors.

In a snap decision, Mayes raised their paddle.

“125 gold pieces to Mr. Auron,” the auctioneer acknowledged.

As the others slipped down into their seats, Mayes whispered over. “We can’t let her have this, right?”

“No,” Icarus agreed.

“But also, now she’s going to see us!” Pandora warned.

“Get lower in your chair!”

The auction continued. “Can I get 150 gold pieces?”

Medea put her paddle straight up, her expression turning from boredom to annoyance.

“200 gold pieces?”

Someone else put up their paddle. Mayes had spurred the bidding war. The auctioneer looked between everybody, a bit of smugness and slight amusement passing over his face as he glanced to Medea. “750 gold pieces?”

Medea raised her paddle in frustration.

The dragonborn jumped up again. “900 gold? Can I get 900 gold?”

The other person raised their paddle.

Icarus slipped out of his chair, meandering around the back of the room behind where Medea was sitting. The auctioneer continued ridiculously jumping the price of the golem, until the next bid was set at 10,000 gold.

Behind Medea, Icarus sent out a magical command. “ _ Freeze.” _

Her hand strained to go up, but she froze in place, held just long enough for someone else to make a bid. The auctioneer brough their gavel down as Icarus slipped back into the crowd.

“10,000 gold!” the auctioneer declared, reading off the name of a random rich Errani citizen.

Medea’s face turned thunderously angry. She waited, leaning back against the wall, and remaining in place for the rest of the auction. The students waited to see if he would bid on anything else, but she didn’t. She looked through the crowd, but didn’t notice the students. She waited, watching the auctioneer with a furious look in her eyes.

The auction came to a break after several more items, after which she pushed off the wall and walked up towards the auctioneer. In a voice too low to hear, she began a heated back and forth conversation. While the auctioneer remained smug, Medea grew angrier and angrier before flipping her hand up, putting the paddle down, and walking away across the room.

She crossed the room towards one of the passages items were moving in and out of to be put up and onto the bidding stage. Waiting for an attendant to move in, she slipped through the door after them.

“Shes’s breaking into the back,” Mayes whispered.

Icarus sighed. “Okay…”

“She captured us, come on.”

“No, I know, it’s just… Let’s go.”

“Let’s go get her. This isn’t cool.”

The three of them got up, resigning themselves to the inevitable fight. They waited at the door, tapping their feet and getting impatient. Eventually, some more attendants wheeled out a big cart. As they did, the three of them managed to slip through into the back corridor, the cart blocking them from the view of the crowd.

Up ahead around a corner, they heard a choking sound. Running down after, they fastened themselves to the wall to peer around. An attendant was lying on the floor, and the doors were open to the warehouse in the back where the items were kept.

Icarus quickly checked the attendant over, but they were only unconscious. The three of them pursued inside.

They found themselves running into a large room, darkened with dim light. The space was full of columns, statues, and items with sheets and silk cloths thrown over them. They couldn’t see Medea, but Mayes’ sword began to glow green. The rabbits bounded out of the sword, circling them.

“Stay quiet, press up to a column,” Mayes whispered.

The three of them slipped behind various columns and statues. Medea stepped out from where she had been examining some of the crates, completely unaware of their presence.

Mayes quietly ran up behind her, silent boots moving across the floor. They swung with Michio’s sword, striking her. She turned around, looking over at them in surprise. Mayes swung with their other sword, but she managed to dodge this time.

Mayes gave her a little smile. “Bet you thought you weren’t going to be running into us again this soon.”

Icarus moved out from behind a column, crowding her back towards the pile of boxes she was standing in front of. “Hey.”

Summoning his spiritual weapon, the ghostly blade knocked into her before he jabbed out with his physical sword, the blade infused with the thunderous power of Kord.

Pandora, wreathed in flame, sent a firebolt flying through the room like a homing missile, darting through Icarus and Mayes to strike into her.

Medea winced away from the blows. “How did you find me?”

Mayes stepped to the side, taking another swing. Medea deflected it away with her own weapon as Icarus charged forwards, sending his spiritual weapon smashing into her once more. As he reached her, he sent a wave of necrotic energy through his blade, striking with expert precision. The blow was near fatal, and Medea looked quite rough already.

Pandora pulled a little vial of oil from her bag. Wiping it across her lips, she spoke. “I suggest that you tell us what you wanted with that golem.”

The magical suggestion pressed forwards, but Medea managed to shake it off. “Not on your life!”

She disappeared in a cloud of mist, reappearing further away. As she landed, she brought out a hand, flourishing a large claw ring with a spike on the end of it depicting a bestial head. Swiping it through the air several times, she summoned two horrifying creatures. They both stood about nine feet tall, with heads like vultures and necks of crested feathers atop the bodies of beetles. They had mottled grey exoskeletons, looking extremely thick and dense, and covered in sharp natural studs. Instead of hands or claws, their front limbs extended into foot long razor sharp blade-like hooks surrounded by red feathers. They had bird-like legs, hooked beaks, and the multifaceted eyes of an insect.

Medea cackled to herself, breathing heavily. “About time I get to take you down.”

“Not on your life,” Mayes returned.

Icarus grinned. “Bold of you to assume.”

Mayes hacked and slashed at the creature near them. “Fight your own battles!”

The creature reared up, swinging at Icarus and Mayes with huge sharp hooks, but the pair of them managed to deflect the blows with their own weapons. Icarus twirled his hands, summoning his spirit guardians. The water nymphs jumped in and out of every surface like liquid, flying through as his spiritual weapon made contact again. The creature was already heavily wounded, with dark blood seeping down it.

The creature let out a shriek to the other, and the second creature turned on Pandora, slashing into her. Thrusting a hand out, Pandora grabbed it, leaving a glowing green handprint behind. The vampiric spell transferred a portion of its life energy back to her, healing her fresh wound. She tried to take a stab with her dagger, but it was still writhing in pain from the handprint, and jolted out of the way.

Medea ran across the room, positioning herself in a straight line across Mayes, Icarus, and the wounded creature. Moving her hand, she shot out a bolt of lightning that blasted through them. Mayes dove out of the way, and though the beam singed Icarus, he managed to keep his spirit guardians swiping through.

Giving a final slash to the first creature, Mayes carved the beast to the ground before running to Medea. As they swung, Icarus sent over his spiritual weapon, knocking her back. The remaining creature, furious as Icarus’s spirit guardians dove through it, flailed out in a failed counterattack.

Pandora stepped up to stab it with her dagger before becoming wreathed in flames once more. Fire exploded out of her, striking across the room to hit both the monster and the mage.

Medea brought her hands forward to cast another spell, beginning to conjure a cloud. It started to fill the room, and Mayes disappeared into the yellow poisonous fog. The others could hear Mayes coughing from inside.

“Mayes!” Pandora shouted.

Heavily obscured by the cloud from all sides, Mayes ran towards where they had last seen Medea. As she struck in retaliation, Mayes dodged, reemerging out of the cloud before swapping their sword for their crossbow to fire. The bolt struck her straight in the head, and she dropped dead.

“She’s down!” Mayes called.

The cloud of fog dispersed, but the creature she had conjured remained.

“Let’s just deal with this, and then we can sort it!” Pandora yelled back.

Icarus attacked with his sword, piercing into it as his spiritual weapon carved through. The nereids danced through relentlessly, and the creature seemed close to dropping. It flailed blindly around, in too much pain to defend itself.

Pandora shot out a final spell, and the beast withered away to nothing. Its skin cracked and flaked as it dropped to the ground.

“You okay Mayes?” Pandora asked.

Mayes took a breath. “Yeah, that was a bad time in there.”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s see what she’s got on her,” Icarus directed.

Mayes bent over her, pulling off the ring, and finding a pouch with six silver pieces inside. Dividing out the silver, they held the ring up to Pandora. “Is this some kind of…? She used it to cast a spell…”

Pandora looked it over. There were a few arcane runes for summoning magic pressed on the inside of it, and though it looked to be out of charge, it seemed like it could be used again later. “It might be one of those things that you can use once a day, but you can summon stuff with it. Not specific stuff.”

“Do you want to hold onto it? Or put it in the bag?”

“Suits you,” Icarus approved. He checked around the room, noticing the crates nailed shut, with a few items locked to the floor. “We need to move, we just left a body in here.”

“Yeah, I was gonna say, what are we gonna do about the body?”

The three of them stared at it for a moment.

Icarus sighed. “Put her in the bag.”

The other two cringed. “No!”

“Put her in the bag,” Icarus insisted. “Because then we can just get rid of her outside, and we’re not just gonna be leaving a dead body in here.”

“I feel kind of weird about that!” Pandora protested.

“Just put her in the bag, she can’t breathe anyway. Unless you just want to leave a dead body.”

“We could set her on fire?” Mayes suggested.

“In a room full of antiques?”

“Control it!” Mayes argued, nodding to Pandora. “You can control it!”

Pandora glanced around, but there was no ventilation in the room. “It’ll smoke us out!”

“Open the bag,” Icarus urged. “Open the bag!”

Pandora cringed, looking away as she held it open. “Oh my god… Oh, I hate this, I hate this so much! It feels dirty!”

Icarus stuffed the small body inside. Glancing back at the two creature bodies behind him, he frowned.

“What are we gonna do now? Where do we put her?” Pandora worried.

“If we left her here,” Mayes suggested, “It would look like the creatures got her.”

Icarus threw up his hands. “Oh my god, get her back out.”

Pandora reached into the Bag of Holding and felt something leathery brushing against her hand. She pulled it out, and it kept coming. The dried body of an anaconda slid out of the bag. “Ugh!”

“Is that a spell thing?” Icarus wondered.

“No! Just leave it with the rest of it! Someone’s gonna have to clean up anyway!”

Icarus reached in himself, pulling out Medea’s body and doing his best to arrange her in a tableau between the two creatures, sliding one of the clawed hands around her and removing the crossbow bolt from her head.

“Okay, back door, back door!” Pandora urged.

They unlatched the door, slipping back out onto the streets of Erran looking slightly worse for wear. They came out into an empty alleyway with the street visible beyond, closing the door behind them.

“What do we do about Sebaste’s clock?” Pandora wondered. “Do they just send it to him or do we need to bring it?”

“We can just go in and collect it real quick,” Mayes suggested. “Go in the front and be like,  _ hey, we popped out for some air…” _

“Sure. I can go get it and bring it back.”

As the least disheveled looking of the group, she went back in to speak to an attendant, but they explained that the clock would be sent to Sebaste once the payment had been received.

“Great, thank you!” She hurried back to the others. “We’ve done all we need to do, let’s leave!”

The three of them made their way back through the streets of Erran, brushing themselves off and tucking away anything that had been stained with blood or pus. Mayes still reeked of the poison gas, but the three of them managed to return to Sebaste’s office. Knocking on the door, they pushed inside.

“Hi,” Icarus nodded.

Sebaste looked up from his paperwork. “What… What happened?”

“Oh, we got in a fight, just to do some training,” Icarus covered. “On the way back, we had some time to kill.”

“Oh, okay,” Sebaste let out a breath of relief. “I had a little bit of a panic there, that I’d sent you into an auction and got you in some kind of physical danger!”

“...No.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mayes followed.

“We had time to kill, like I said, so we were just doing some training.”

“But good news,” Pandora continued, “We found something for you!”

His eyes lit up. “You did?”

“We did, and it will be delivered to your house.”

“Fantastic!”

“It’s a time stopping clock,” Icarus explained.

Sebaste let out a gasp of surprise. “I bet it looks absolutely wonderful. It would go fantastically on my clock wall. My wife will be so happy.”

“...Your clock wall?”

“Yes!”

Icarus blinked, shaking his head as he processed the information. “Wait, your wife?”

“Yes?”

“Huh…” Icarus looked away, muttering to himself. “When did he have time…?”

“Thank you very much for doing that for me,” Sebaste continued. “I’m sure my friend Ruben will be very happy as well.”

“Yeah, his got sold for like, 900? And we got the clock for you for 700.”

“Fantastic! Obviously, you will receive your cut of payment…”

“Oh,” Mayes waved a hand, “Put it between these two.”

Icarus turned his head. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m debt free, so.”

“You sure Mayes?” Pandora checked.

“Yeah.”

“That’s very, very kind of you,” Sebaste replied. “If you two are comfortable with that...?”

Pandora glanced at Icarus, who was looking to the floor, silent. “Sure, if that’s okay…?”

“Fantastic. In which case…” he brought out his balance books, flipping through to their debt. He cleared Pandora’s debt once more, and took 125 gold pieces off of Icarus’s total.

“Thank you very much!”

“No problem. I will be sure to stay in touch as soon as I’ve got something else. I’ll keep you in mind.”

Icarus gave him a nod. “Thanks. Might be good.”

Sebaste let them go. As he did, Pandora pulled Mayes aside in the hallway. “Mayes, you didn’t have to do that. It was really nice, but you were involved in all of that as well…”

“Yeah, but, it doesn’t matter,” they shrugged.

“Well, I wondered if you wanted this, then.”

She pulled out the claw ring, handing it over.

“Um, sure,” Mayes agreed. “I can hold onto it.”

“I don’t think you need to be able to use magic to use a ring like this,” she explained.

“Okay. You said it might recharge in the morning?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll see what it does in the morning and let you know. Thank you.”

  
  


The day was settling into late afternoon. Tonight would be Persephone and Roys’s engagement party, in the town of Ispiti just outside of Erran. Mayes was sure to have a serious bath while the others freshened up for the night, putting in their new hairpieces.

Icarus took hold of his necklace.  _ “Hey, so, we had a run in with Medea. She won’t be a problem anymore.” _

As usual, Damen’s voice soon replied.  _ “Really glad to hear from you. Looks like the entire Kondou situation is gonna be sorted soon. As ever, thank you so much.” _

That done, Icarus dressed himself up for the party. After taking a moment to write another letter, he gathered a few papers up, and went to hunt out Alexis.

It took him a short while to find him, but he eventually found him in the library. Alexis glanced up, and upon noticing him, looked relatively happy to see him again. “Hey.”

“Hey. Can we talk for a sec?”

“Yeah, uh… sure.”

Alexis pulled him over to a quiet corner of the library. Icarus shifted the stack of papers in his hands.

“Last night I said I trusted you,” he began. “And I mean that, like, implicitly.”

“...I trust you too.”

Icarus passed the paperwork over, with the letter to Lorakai on top. “Can you… Can you keep hold of this?”

“...Yeah?”

“It’s for Lorakai. Just… just in case.”

“In case?”

“Just in case.”

Alexis shook his head. “Ic, are you expecting something to happen?”

Icarus stared off for a second. “I don’t know. But I wanna make… I just wanna make plans, just in case.”

“And in what circumstance would I give this to Lorakai?”

Icarus couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t know. I don’t know, I guess… if anything happens. To me.”

Alexis looked down at the papers. “Sure, well, I’ll give you my word on it.”

“Thanks.”

“Just… be bloody careful. I understand a contingency plan, but… try not to let anything happen to you.”

“I’m not planning on… letting anything happen to me.”

“Okay.”

“I just wanna be safe. And I don’t want anything to happen to me, and have Lorakai be left wondering, you know? He… he’s basically my dad.”

“I get it. Sure, consider it done.”

“Thanks.”

Alexis gave him a nod. “Sure. You look good, by the way.”

Icarus gave a surprised smile. “Thanks.”

“Going out somewhere special?”

“Pandora’s sister has got an engagement party, so.”

“Right. Enjoy yourself.”

“Will do. Catch you later?”

“Catch you later.”

“Okay.” Icarus gave his shoulder a little squeeze, and walked away.

  
  


The three of them took a short rest, meeting up again in the front lobby of Delphos about an hour and a half before the party. They headed out, hopping up onto the back of a cart and watching the city roll away from them.

They left Erran’s walls to head to Ispiti, just outside the city on the coast. Ispiti was a quaint, coastal town built into the hillside, about half an hour out of the city center. Whitewashed stone houses with roofs of rich terracotta tile and blue paint were built to stack higher and higher along the cliffside, giving the effect that the houses were cascading down towards the crystal clear sea at the bottom. Large flagstones lined the streets, while lush hanging plants trailed from lattices, and the white walls of houses and shops reflected the evening sunlight to make Ispiti bright and deliciously warm even at this time of day.

The fresh scent of the ocean permeated the area while the strum of musicians and amiable shouts of vendors filled the streets. Pandora told the others all about how Ispiti prospered on craftsmanship as they travelled down. The people who lived there could boast of a thriving market culture, within which all manner of local crafts and delicacies were sold, including cured meats, fish, citrus fruits, homemade bottled wines and cordials, flower arrangements, potions and salves, children’s toys, intricate metalwork and pottery, sculpted candles and lace, and so many more things found on almost every street in stalls or being sold out front of individual houses.

The cart trundled down towards the Di Rossi house as Pandora informed them that the work of glass smith Stefano Di Rossi were renowned throughout the area, with some dotted around in shop windows or in people’s homes. She pointed excitedly as they passed by, “That’s one of my dad’s! That’s one of my dad’s!”

To operate as a full time working, stay at home single dad, Stefano had relocated his workshop into the ground floor of their home.

“Pandora, I’m so excited to meet your dad,” Mayes grinned.

“Oh, I can’t wait for you guys to meet my family!” Pandora replied. “I miss them so much!”

“I can’t wait to meet them,” Icarus grinned. “You talk about them so much.”

“Your sisters, too,” Mayes added.

Pandora looked eagerly out across the town. “Oh my gosh, it’s been so long.”

Icarus sat back in the cart. “It’s so weird though. We could have been friends a long time ago.”

“I guess I was always kind of shut away in the library.”

“Oh, that’s fair. Because I used to come swimming at this beach.”

“Really?”

“Yeah!”

“Oh my gosh, I used to come here all the time as a kid!”

“See?” Icarus grinned. “We could have met. There’s a really nice family of seals that live just…” he pointed off towards one side of the beach.

“Oh my gosh! I’ve heard about them but I’ve never seen them!”

“I will take you to meet them, they are so cute.”

  
  


The cart dropped them off a few streets over so they could enjoy the walk along the seafront. As they reached the DiRossi home, they felt the heat from the glass worker’s furnace, done for the day but still radiating out into the street from wide open doors. Inside, shelves and workbenches were stacked with countless completed glass artwork, including vases, perfume bottles, and intricate sculptures ranging from the size of a fingernail to three or four feet high.

Icarus took in the sight, impressed. “Wow…”

“Dad?” Pandora called out.

There was a bit of movement from one of the back rooms of the workshop before Stefano’s head popped out, having been cleaning up after a day of working at the furnace. He was a human man in his late fifties, and smaller than Pandora at 5’6” with bold, greying stubble on his face, his features lined with the furrows and smile lines of someone who laughed out loud and worried in silence.

He came straight out with a smile. “Dora!”

“Dad!”

He pulled her into a tight hug that Pandora happily returned. “Oh, it’s so good to see you!”

“I missed you so much!”

“You’re here now sweetie, you’re here now.”

“Dad, dad! I have to introduce you to my two bestest friends at Delphos. This is Icarus, and this is Mayes.”

The other two shared a glance and a smile, and greeted Stefano. “Hi!”

“I have heard about you two! I want to give you the biggest hug, is that okay?”

“Yes, it’s so nice to meet you Mr. Di Rossi!” Mayes grinned.

Stefano raised his arms in joy before grabbing both of their faces, kissing their cheeks and pulling them into a hug.

“It’s really nice to meet you sir,” Icarus smiled.

“It’s very nice to meet you too, I’m so so happy that you’ve become friends with my Dora.”

“She’s a wonderful girl,” Mayes offered.

“She’s quite an inspirational person,” Icarus agreed.

Pandora was visibly buzzing to be home. Stefano smiled at her, and waved them in. “Please, come inside, come inside, don’t wait out on the street.”

“Are Sephie and Penny here?” Pandora asked.

“They are, as well as some of Sephie’s guests already, so please come through…” he welcomed them through the ground floor to a staircase at the back.

The heat of the furnace rose up the staircase, but it was countered by the sea breeze wafting in through open windows to an airy space lit up with several different lamps on the walls. The smell of ocean salt danced past the whitewashed stone walls, some patterned with smaller stones pressed into the surface. Amongst cleanly decorated rooms were plants, wicker and wood furniture, and a comfortable but not cluttered home. The living area and kitchen were both on this floor, with another staircase up towards the bedrooms.

A beautiful view of the ocean could be seen out the windows. The sun was setting, but there were still a few warm colors on the horizon line. For the sake of the party, the windows had been opened, allowing the sea air in and the warm glow of the building to spill out. Music played softly from a bard who sat in one corner with a lyre. The sounds of laughter and merriment could already be heard from the guests in the kitchen.

As they came into the room, they immediately saw the familiar figure of Roys, the tall pale elf with dark hair and purple blue eyes. He wore his necklace and a fine palla for the evening. Next to him, dressed in a beautiful silk palla trimmed with gold in a warm, peachy color that was almost nude against her orange skin before fading into a darker purple at the hem, was Persephone. She looked quite similar to Pandora, though a bit older, her long hair up in intricate braids around her horns, decorated with a waterfall of jewelry made of seashells and pearls. She had an expensive crystal necklace around her neck, with an impressive ring on her finger she was showing off to some other guests.

As soon as Persephone caught sight of a familiar burnt orange tiefling coming up the stairs, she turned in delight. “Pandora!”

“Sephie!” Pandora squealed.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you!”

Pandora ran up to her, grabbing her into a hug.

“Oh, careful, careful!” Persephone warned. “It’s very expensive!”

“Oh, sorry! I’m sorry! You look so beautiful!”

“Oh, you look so adorable!  _ Pan- _ dorable.”

Pandora giggled. “Oh my gosh, congratulations!”

“Thank you so much!”

“It’s so exciting!”

Roys gave her a smile. “Good to see you again, Pandora.”

Pandora hugged him as well. “Hi Roys!”

He ruffled her hair, nodding over to the other students. “Good to see you two as well.”

“Hi, good to see you,” Icarus smiled. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah, congratulations,” Mayes echoed. “And nice to meet you, Persephone.”

“Yes, it’s so good to meet you too!” she beamed.

“Sephie,” Pandora began, “This is Mayes and Icarus from Delphos.”

“Mayes and Icarus, thank you so much for looking after my little sister- ”

“That’s Mayes,” Icarus interjected, clarifying. “I’m Icarus.”

“Oh, right!”

“But it’s very nice to meet you, and congratulations. You look stunning.”

“Thank you so much! It’s so good to have you here. Penelope is in the kitchen.”

“Okay!” Pandora jumped. “Let’s go meet Penelope!”

She led them through, passing by a few other guests at the party. Pandora didn’t recognize most of the friends that Persephone had accumulated after graduation, but she did notice one vaguely familiar figure. A tall and broad half-orc woman with a strong jawline and a very friendly face strolled past.

“Oh wow…” Pandora pulled the others in, whispering. “That’s the vice captain of the city guard!”

Pandora recognized Erzux, a green skinned horned lizardfolk, as a friend of Persephone’s they had met before at dinners and birthday parties. A low level cleric of Maglubiyet, he had first met Persephone on a work assignment, and was quite a nervous guy that tended to become more fun after a few drinks. There was also a tan skinned half elf with long dark hair and eyes and a beautiful but severe looking face mingling around that Pandora didn’t recognize.

In the kitchen, Alexander was talking to Pandora’s younger sister Penelope, who she hadn’t seen in several months. Since they had last been together, Penelope had cut her hair short, giving herself an undercut on one side. She was in the middle of an in depth and loud conversation with Alexander about how the council had increased taxation at the docks for smaller fishing vessels, arguing that they were clearly trying to push out small businesses because they had a stake in the larger ones. As she explained this, she was preparing a banquet of food spread out all over the kitchen.

“Penny!” Pandora called.

She turned. “Pandora!”

Pandora ran at her sister, and Penelope cut off her conversation with Alexander to meet her. “Oh, it’s good to see you!”

“It’s good to see you,” Pandora smiled. “How are you doing? I love your hair!”

“Thank you!”

“It looks so cute on you.”

“Aw, thank you, I thought so…” she trailed off, noticing the students behind Pandora with a grin. “And, who are these two?”

“This is Icarus, and this is Mayes, my friends from Delphos.”

“Hey,” Mayes waved.

“Nice to meet you,” Icarus offered. “We’ve heard lots about you.”

Penelope raised a brow. “Oh! I haven’t heard anything about you…”

The other two looked at Pandora, who blushed. “I haven’t written, I’m sorry, it’s been so busy…”

“That’s okay, that’s okay. Just finishing up the food.”

“Do you want some help?”

“Oh, no no no, enjoy the party.”

“Okay. It’s so good to be home, I missed you so much!”

Penelope gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I was just telling Alexander about the council, and how…” she launched into her tirade of angry activism for the small businesses of Erran once more.

“You’re not talking his ear off, are you?”

“No no, it’s quite alright,” Alexander replied, pinching the bridge of his nose and giving himself away a bit. “It’s good to see you, Pandora.”

“Good to see you.”

“You’re going to have to get used to this,” Icarus teased Alexander before looking back to Penelope. “You going to Delphos too?”

“Yeah,” Pandora smiled. “She’s starting in the coming year.”

Icarus watched Penelope’s face turn to annoyance. “You don’t wanna?” he guessed.

Stefano quickly stepped up behind. “Yes, she’s gonna go to Delphos, starting in the next couple of months. We’re very proud of her, aren’t we?”

Penelope gave him a look, lowering her voice. “Dad, I’ve told you before that I don’t want to go to Delphos Academy. I’m not interested in that.”

He pulled her aside. “Honey, I’ve told you, it’s the best education you can get, and I’m trying to provide for you in the best way that I possibly can. Honestly, how else are you going to follow in your mother’s footsteps?”

“Ugh, Dad! I can’t think of anything worse! I want to go into something interesting that might actually change things, not politics.”

“Well, where else to change things other than in politics, Penny?” Pandora pressed.

She waved her off. “None of you understand. Anyway, the food needs serving.”

She began picking up plates, taking them into the other room. Stefano rubbed his face. “I’m sorry about her. She’s going through a phase.”

“Don’t be sorry about it,” Icarus assured him. “It’s not anything to be ashamed of, to be interested in helping people.”

“No, no, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. She just doesn’t… it doesn’t click with her yet that she will be making a change, she’d be in a great position to be making change if she pursues this sort of career path.”

“She’s been like this since she was a baby,” Pandora shrugged in explanation.

Stefano smiled. “She’s always been trouble.”

“I don’t know about trouble, dad,” Pandora siled, “But like, she’s always been very sure of what she wants. Remember mom used to say she could be a lawyer?”

“She certainly could be a lawyer. She stands up for herself, and she can talk me down from anything.”

“She’s not walking all over you, is she?”

“No no no. You know, she’ll be gone soon, we’ll get some space in the house, it’ll be quiet… and I’ll probably miss the arguing.”

“Aw, dad…”

“What about you three? Where are you planning to move to after the Academy?”

“We haven’t even really thought about it. We’ve been so busy…”

“Lorakai’s kicking me out,” Icarus chuckled.

“Yeah, I don’t want to go back to living with my parent’s friends,” Mayes followed. “So…”

“Why don’t… Why don’t we find a place?” Pandora suggested. “Like, the three of us? Be roommates? If that’s… if that’s something you want to do…”

“I’d like that,” Icarus smiled.

“That’s a nice idea,” Mayes seconded. “Yeah, we should. Look at some places…”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Stefano grinned. “You could move here to Ispiti, and be close to home!”

“I could!” Pandora gasped. “It would be right near the ocean, Icarus!”

“Get a place down on the beach, go out and swim in the sea every day…”

Icarus smiled. “I could introduce you to the seals.”

“Oh my gosh, that would be so good!” Pandora agreed. “And we’d be still close to Erran, but not right too close in the hustle and bustle of it. Um, if that’s what you guys want to do… we could have a look and see what else is available elsewhere.”

“Yeah, let’s have a look around. I’m happy about that though, that would be really nice. And you’d be close to your boyfriend if you moved here, as well.”

Stefano tilted his head. “Boyfriend?”

“Um… it’s still like, a very new thing,” Pandora explained.

Icarus realized his mistake, and quickly turned away. “Mayes! Um, I gotta… I gotta go, the view?”

“Let’s go get drinks and go to the balcony,” Mayes quickly agreed.

“I’m so sorry…”

The pair of them darted away from the conversation as Stephano folded his arms. “So, who’s this boyfriend?”

She fidgeted in place. “Uh… his name is Adrian…”

“Adrian?”

“And… he is a gladiator at the Maw.”

Stefano blinked in surprise. “Oh?”

“He’s one of the arcane users.”

Alexander interjected from over Stefano’s shoulder. “He’s a very, very nice man.”

Stefano turned back. “Oh, you’ve met him? Well, in which case, I would like to meet him.”

“We’ve only been out a couple times,” Pandora countered. “I don’t know how serious it is yet…”

“Well, I would like to know if he's good enough for you.”

“Dad… come on, it’s…”

“Go enjoy yourself, we’ll talk about this later.”

“Okay…” she stepped away, catching Alexander’s eye. “Can I talk to you later? It doesn't have to be now, enjoy the party…”

“Of course,” he agreed.

Pandora escaped back to her friends, socializing for a bit with her sister’s guests. The tan skinned half elf with the dark eyes remained quite close to Roys, and was fairly tactile with him, but Persephone didn’t seem to mind.

Eventually, Pandora whispered to Penelope about it. “Who is that?”

“Oh, that’s Sara,” she shrugged.

“Who is she?”

“Roys’s best friend. I know it’s kind of weird.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“It is a little bit weird.”

“Like… it’s an engagement party!”

“I know. Apparently they’ve known each other since they were, like, tiny children,” Penelope explained.

“I mean, Sephie is right there!”

“Well then do something about it!”

“It’s not my, like- !”

“Then leave it alone!”

“Okay! Geez! Actually, like…” she looked around, finding Persephone in the crowd. “I wanted to speak to both of you, if you have a second.”

“Okay.”

Taking her sister’s hand, Pandora pulled her towards Persephone. “Sephie, do you have a second?”

“Of course!” she smiled.

Pandora led her sisters upstairs into her childhood bedroom. Glass sculptures decorated the shelves, and books on arcana, politics, weaponry, and history covered every space.

“I missed you guys so much,” she began. “It’s so good to see you both.”

“We missed you too,” Sephie stroked her hair.

Pandora leaned into the hand. “This might sound kinda weird, and feel free to tell me I’m being silly or whatever. But, I’ve been… both thinking about, and having a lot of dreams about mom lately.”

“What kind of dreams?”

“Weird stuff, like… there was one time, I was in a volcano trying to get to her. But she was wreathed in smoke, and I couldn’t reach her. But in all the dreams, she’s calling out for me. Does that mean anything to you?”

Persephone had a flash of recognition in her face. “I mean, I've had dreams about mom before…”

“Doesn’t mean anything to me,” Penelope shrugged.

“You were really little,” Pandora replied. “Do you remember much about her?”

“Not really.”

“I think you would have liked her a lot.”

Persephone patted her shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“You sure?”

“There is a lot that we don’t know about her, and… perhaps one day we will find out. I guess, think of the dreams as a way to connect with her, finally.”

“I guess. There’s… other stuff as well. Again, I don’t know if it’s me being stupid or silly, or just exam stress, or something, but like… I've been… I’ve been hearing stuff.”

“Hearing stuff?”

“Like… in my head.”

“...Maybe see how you feel a few weeks after your exams.”

“Yeah, I guess. It’s been a stressful time.”

“If it’s still worrying you, then, we can talk about it then.”

“Yeah. I know I can talk to you guys about anything.”

“Always.”

Pandora swallowed, blinking away emotion. “I love you guys so much.”

Both of her sisters pulled her into a big hug, their tails entwining. They sat for a while holding each other like that until Persephone pulled away. “I’ve got party guests to get back to…”

“I’m sorry, yeah.”

“No, of course. It’s so good to see you, please come downstairs and enjoy yourself.”

“Sorry, I just haven’t had a moment with you guys for a year or something, since Solstice…”

“Well you’re done with school now, you can come back and spend some time. And you can come see me in Roys’s place.”

“Yes, I’m really excited! I’m excited for the wedding and, just everything!”

Penelope jumped up. “Oh, the food! I’ve got to get back to the food…”

As she darted downstairs, Persephone leaned in close. “Just before you go back down… would you be my Maid of Honor?”

Pandora covered her mouth with her hands, beginning to cry. “Yes, of course I will!”

“I didn’t want to ask in front of Penelope, but… Oh, don’t do that, you’ll ruin your makeup!”

“Yes, of course I will! That’s so sweet of you!”

“Come on, it’s my big emotional day, stop crying!” Persephone chuckled.

The pair of them hugged, catching up for a few more minutes before they headed back downstairs into the party.

  
  


Icarus and Mayes had been milling around, socializing with the others. Eventually, Mayes whispered to Icarus. “Do you think… we can trust Roys, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Should we talk to him about… stuff?”

“Uh… I don’t know.”

“Not sure?”

“Well, we don’t want to drag people into it, you know? We’ve already told Pešek about things, I’d feel bad about dragging more people into it.”

“I know, but like… surely he’s in a position where he can do something about it, right? Or get us more information?”

“It’s his engagement party. Let’s not drop a bomb on him. You know?”

“Fair…”

_ “Oh hey, happy engagement, by the way, there’s a secret underground- ” _

“I don’t mean go that far! I just mean… insinuate? See how…?” Mayes held their head with a sigh. “I don’t know…”

Icarus looked them over, and relented. “Sure.”

“Okay.”

Roys was in the other room, still with Sara next to him. Whenever she laughed, she would bump her shoulder against his. He didn’t seem to be responding in kind.

“Hey Roys,” Icarus smiled.

He turned and nodded. “Hey, how are you doing?”

“Good, how are you?”

“Good!”

“Can we talk to you for a second? I’m really sorry…”

“Yeah yeah, of course. Sara, give us some space,” he teased. “Give us some space, woman!”

“I’ll get another drink,” she relented. Sara began to slink away, casting another glance back at him. 

“You’re close,” Mayes observed.

“Yeah,” Roys shrugged. “She’s like a sister, so…” The pair of them led Roys over to a corner. “What would you like to talk about?”

“We’ve got some things that we’d like to discuss,” Icarus began. “Not here, not at your engagement party, but we’ve got…” he sighed, starting again. “Pandora trusts you.”

“I hope so.”

“So we trust you. And, we might have gotten mixed up in some stuff.”

“You’re in some kind of trouble?”

“Kind of…”

“Not as much trouble as we were in,” Mayes amended.

“No. Anyway, there’s something going on in the city, and we think that...” he trailed off again, giving Mayes a look.

“You know how the previous Armiger was murdered? We were there that night. We found his body, and…”

“Did the investigation. Now we kind of think we know who did it.”

“Or have slightly more indication.”

Roys frowned. “Who? Who do you think it is?”

“A shifter,” Icarus offered.

“Not the one who was at the party,” Mayes clarified. “But, a different one. And that some people at Delphos can’t be trusted…”

“Zyki. Zyki’s trying to recruit Delphos students into this.”

“Like me.”

Roys shook his head in surprise. “It sounds like you’ve been going through a lot.”

“There's a lot going on.”

“I’m really sorry to bring this up at your party,” Icarus apologized. “I didn’t actually want to bring up all of this stuff, I just wanted to say that we know some stuff, and we would like to discuss it with you.”

“We can make time to discuss,” he agreed. “We can definitely discuss that, don’t worry. We’ll arrange that when we’re, all of us, back in Erran. Make some time at the Council building to go over it properly.”

“That’d be really good.”

“That’d be fantastic, thank you so much,” Mayes followed.

“Don’t…” Icarus bit his lip, pausing before he continued on. “Don’t trust Leonida.”

“I wouldn’t trust that man with my life,” Roys chuckled.

“Good.”

“Smart,” Mayes agreed. They gave him an awkward side hug, and Roys pat them on the shoulder.

Icarus offered his hand, and Roys shook it. “Please, let’s get you some drinks so you can relax,” he urged. “Because it sounds like you’ve really been through it.”

“Kind of,” Icarus laughed.

“Some strong drinks.”

Penelope was now mixing cocktails. Mayes instigated some political conversation with her, and she completely lightened up, fully engaging with the conversation apart from the occasional flirty look at Icarus. “Anyone want to join me on the balcony?”

“Yeah, sure,” Icarus agreed.

As Mayes and Icarus followed, Penelope pulled out a smoking pipe. “If you want to partake?”

“Yeah,” Icarus shrugged.

She passed him the pipe, catching Pandora’s eye from inside and pointing at the pipe.

Pandora’s jaw dropped. “What are you doing?”

Penelope mimed smoking, waving her over to join them.

“Don’t let dad see you!”

As the two of them continued their mouthed conversation from afar, Mayes felt the air growing awkward and quickly stealthed away. Icarus gave Pandora a wave with the pipe.

“Don’t encourage her!” Pandora whispered back, making her way out to meet them. “She’s a kid!”

“I’m not a kid!” Penelope argued.

“You’re my kid sister!”

Icarus glanced back at Penelope. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” she admitted. “But it’s not like there’s laws in Erran about how old you have to be to smoke pipe!”

Pandora shook her head. “Don’t let dad see you!”

“Dad doesn’t care!”

Icarus offered the pipe out. “You want? It’ll help you relax.”

Pandora bristled. “Are you saying I’m uptight?”

“...I don’t wanna answer that.”

“Come on, Dora,” Penelope teased. “Be cool!”

“I’m cool!” Pandora argued. “I’m so cool!”

“Then you’ll smoke the pipe!”

From inside, Mayes leaned over to the window. “Peer pressure isn’t cool, guys!”

“Whatever,” Penelope shrugged. “Be boring.”

Pandora huffed away as Mayes disappeared again. Penelope later went into another heated discussion with Stefano, who advised her to take Icarus and Mayes upstairs to talk politics away from the party. The three of them sat on the floor and the beds, leaning on the walls and desks and discussing exactly how they would go about dismantling the system.

“If we all go at once,” Icarus declared, passing back the pipe, “They can’t stop all of us.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking!” Penelope agreed.

“You know what they say about ants,” Mayes seconded. “They’re stronger together.”

Icarus leaned forward, his eyes a bit unfocused. “Ants can lift a lot, though…”

“I can lift a lot,” Penelope argued.

“So can I,” Mayes agreed.

Icarus grinned, looking quite hazy. “We can do this.”

“Are you guys in your right mind right now?”

“I’m in my best mind!”

“We could go jump into the sea,” Penelope suggested.

Icarus gasped. “I know seals!”

“You know,” Mayes smirked, “If you’re going to jump into the sea you should absolutely show off your swimming skills to Penelope.”

Icarus stared off, looking confused. “What else would I do in the sea?”

“...Okay.”

“Let’s go, let’s go!” Penelope beamed. “You too, Mayes!”

“Nope.”

Icarus grabbed their hand. “Yep, come on!”

“No no no!” Mayes twisted out of the hold, stealthing away again.

  
  


The evening moved on, and eventually Pandora was able to take Alexander out for some air on the balcony. It was a much more peaceful moment. They watched Penelope, Icarus, and the lizardfolk come out onto the street, running across the beach and down to the water.

“Well, off they go,” Pandora chuckled.

“I’m sure they’re having fun,” Alexander replied.

Icarus’s voice could still be heard yelling from the beach. “I know seals!”

Alexander chuckled. “Quite a rowdy bunch of friends you’ve gathered.”

“Yeah, I never would have expected that for me. It feels like ages since we last debriefed.”

“It does, doesn’t it. I suppose that comes with the end of the school year.”

“Yeah, you must have been so busy with all of the exams going on.”

“It’s been pretty crazy, but… I have reviewed the work you did on your third task. And, I have spoken with your outside examiner. I shouldn’t really say this, but you passed this one with flying colors.”

Pandora gave a relieved smile. “Oh, that’s great to hear.”

“You are definitely on track to graduate at the end of the month.”

“That’s so… that’s such a relief, thank you.”

“I think it’s probably the same for all three of you as well. I’m saying this off the record!”

“No, of course, absolutely. My lips are sealed.”

“It’s going to be strange,” he mused. “Not having you around.”

“That’s partially what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s going to be strange, not hanging out with you. I couldn’t have done these four years without you.”

“It has been an absolute pleasure, mentoring you. I believe you’ve still got a long way to go, you’re going to keep learning far beyond the confines of Delphos Academy.”

“Well that’s what you’ve always said, isn’t it? You should never stop learning.”

“Exactly. And there’s so much more, I mean, you are already an exceptional mage, but I believe you have the potential to go above and beyond. And of course, there’s always so much more arcane knowledge to obtain. So many more spells, so much more power. I just… hope that you find something to do with yourself that interests you, and allow you to reach that potential.”

“I hope so too.”

“Good.”

“I also hope… that we won’t be strangers, after this.”

Alexander smiled. “Luckily, the confines of my job doesn’t prevent me from being friends with you.”

“That’s good to know. And, as we’ve found out about Master Auron today, it doesn’t mean that you cannot leave the building, you can’t go out and see friends.”

“Believe me,” he chuckled, “The other professors and I do have lives outside of Delphos Academy.”

“It’d be nice to stay in touch.”

“Of course. We can meet for tea sometimes, catch up.”

“That would be really nice. Um… I…” Pandora fidgeted in place, looking away. “I suppose I don’t have many more opportunities to fully go over this sort of thing with you, but… quite a lot happened, during that third task.”

“You were gone quite a long time. A lot longer than I expected.”

“Yeah. I was expecting it to be a sort of, in and out, job done, kind of thing.”

“Suppose that’s part of real world experiences. You never know what to expect.”

“We, um… after we killed the hydra, the floor collapsed, and we ended up in a series of underground tunnels.”

Pandora told him everything. She told him all about the Typhon Assembly, Kondou, Zyki, and whatever she could think of. Pure and honest shock formed on Alexander’s face as he listened. He seemed genuinely shaken by the information, but he believed her.

“I’m sorry this is quite a lot. I wanted to tell you on the day, but, we kept missing each other, and there was so much else going on.”

“...Quite.”

“Sorry this is quite a lot. But I’ve always felt like I can tell you anything.”

“...Well, I’m… This can’t be left alone.”

“No. To be honest, I’m kind of… terrified, over the whole thing,” she admitted.

“I think you’ve done enough. And I think this is a matter that can move into official hands.”

“I hope so.”

“If… it can be determined, which official hands it can safely go to.”

“That’s just it. Did not expect to see Zyki down there.”

“No… I don’t know what to say.”

“Nor do I. And I don’t suppose there is, really, much to say…”

Alexander sighed. “It’s stressful, but it can be dealt with. Perhaps another time, we can go over all the details, write down everything you remember, and perhaps your peers as well.”

“Absolutely.”

“I promise you can trust me.”

“I do trust you. Above anyone, I trust you.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“And, um… I didn’t get to give you this on Solstice, so it’s a bit late, but I kind of wanted to give you something. Not as a goodbye present, but as a… see you when I see you, present.”

“Pandora, that’s so kind of you.”

Pandora rooted around in her bag, and pulled out a tiny glass kingfisher that her dad had made for her years ago. “I want you to have this.”

“That’s beautiful,” he took it, inspecting it closely. “It will remind me of you.”

“That’s what I hoped.”

“And Puck, of course.”

“Yeah,” she laughed. “Couldn’t have done it without him, either.”

“Thank you very, very much.”

“Thank you for everything.” She put a hand on his shoulder, leaning up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek.

“And stop talking like we won’t see each other again,” Alexander teased. “I’ll probably see you in a couple of days.”

“I know. Just feels like the end of an era, you know?”

“Well then,” he raised his glass. “To you, Pandora. Shining star of Delphos.”

“And to you, Mr. Escholme. Who I couldn’t have done it without.”

He tapped his glass against hers, and they drank. Down on the beach, they could hear the whooping and hollering of Icarus, Penelope, and the lizardfolk charging into the sea for a swim, accompanied by the sounds of seals barking, their heads popping out of the waves.

The evening continued on. Icarus became quite drunk, and it was a merry but bumpy ride on the cart back towards Delphos. They fell into their beds, and had a nice, deep, slightly drunken sleep.

  
  


The morning rolled around. Pandora and Mayes came downstairs, having agreed to meet to go house hunting together. They sat in the foyer to wait for Icarus, bright and early. They waited a while for him, but he didn’t join them.

“He’s normally the first one out,” Pandora commented.

“I know, right? I guess maybe he got too drunk. Maybe the seals stole him away.”

“He got very drunk last night.”

“Him and your sister were quite the chaotic duo.”

“Yeah, I think he always needed to meet her match, but I think she got pretty close last night.”

Mayes laughed. “They’re very silly. So… do we give him a few more minutes, do we have a look around?”

“Let’s give him ten more minutes, because he’s normally a very punctual guy.”

“That’s true.”

“He might just be too far gone this morning.”

They waited, but Icarus still did not emerge. The pair of them headed off without him to do some house hunting on their own.

“We’ll make note of the good ones for him,” Pandora decided.

“Yeah, so that he can come with us later.”

They checked out a handful of different places. They fell in love with a few, only to realize they were much too pricey. There were some with beautiful natural light, very airy, but the three bedrooms were barely more than three cupboards. Finally, they found a few with good rent, and though they didn’t have the nice view and weren’t in as clean an area, they seemed more reasonable.

The pair of them spent most of the day searching, chatting about future plans over lunch and losing the hours. They made it back to Delphos without hearing from Icarus.

As they walked back across the quad, Lorakai called out for them.

Pandora glanced up. “Lorakai?”

“What’s up?” Mayes asked.

He hurried over. “Were you two with Icarus today?”

“No.”

“No, he was meant to be with us, but he got pretty drunk last night, so we figured he was sleeping it off,” Pandora explained.

“I don’t know where he’s gotten to,” Lorakai worried. “I knocked on his door, didn’t answer. I thought he must have been with you two.”

“No, I haven’t seen him since last night.”

“Maybe we could go up to his room and check?”

“Or Pandora, I don’t know if you can do it today, but you could always message him?” Mayes suggested.

“Yeah, I can,” she agreed. She sent a message out to the general area, just in case he was near.  _ “Hey buddy, where are you? Lorakai’s looking for you.” _

When that didn’t work, she tried a stronger version of the spell.  _ “Icarus, where are you? Lorakai is looking for you, he’s kind of worried.” _

She felt the spell go through, but he didn’t reply.

“He left me on read!” Pandora realized.

Mayes raised a brow. “What?”

“He got it, but he’s not replying!”

“That’s worrying,” Lorakai frowned. “That makes me worry that he can’t reply, or…”

“So we should go looking for him,” Mayes decided.

“Or he’s just ignoring me,” Pandora replied. “Should we go check his room?”

“Let’s go check his room,” Lorakai agreed.

He led them into the Virtus dorms.

“It smells like sports in here,” Pandora commented.

He took them through, and though it was mostly empty at this time of year with many students returning home, a few people were staying over the winter period into the next year. Reaching Icarus’s door, Lorakai knocked again, and again. “Icarus, if you’re in there, whatever’s going on, just open up!”

There was no response.

“Want me to break in?” Mayes offered.

“Is it locked?” Pandora asked.

Lorakai tried the handle. “Yeah.”

Mayes picked the lock, and pushed open the door. The room was as neat as normal, the bed nicely turned down. Icarus wasn’t there, but sitting on the desk was a note addressed to Pandora and Mayes.

Pandora picked it up, opening the letter to read it with Mayes.

  
  


_ Pandora and Mayes, _

_ Sorry for heading off without saying goodbye. I’ve found a way to settle my debt with Delphos, and should even have some money too for renting a nicer place in the new year. I’ll be gone a few days on a contract. I hope looking for a new place to live goes well. _

_ Don’t worry about me! _

_ Icarus _

  
  



	26. Icarus Lost, Episode Twenty-Six

Lorakai read the note over their shoulders, rubbing his face. “Okay…”

“But Sebaste didn’t have any more contracts,” Pandora frowned.

_ “Don’t worry, _ he says,” Mayes read, “Making us instantly worry.”

Lorakai shook his head. “Good move, Icarus.”

“Cover his debts, and have extra money to help find a nicer place?” Pandora repeated.

Mayes looked over the letter again. “How is he going to get that much money for one job?”

“It’s gotta be a big job.”

“There was… There was a job board,” Lorakai realized, “When I went for tea with him. A job board up in the tea shop, listing a bunch of contracts.”

“Should we check the job board?” Mayes asked.

“I think it would probably be a good idea, see if he went back there and spoke to them about it. I’m worried that… I mean, obviously I’m worried about him, but I’m sure he can take care of himself. What I’m worried about is, if he’s doing something outside of the Academy and the Academy learns he’s being reckless… even at this stage, it might hurt his chances of graduating.”

“Oh… So we kind of have to keep this under wraps.”

“Yes, if the two of you wouldn’t mind, um… going after him? Trying to track down where he’s gone and just making sure he gets back safe?”

“Of course. Don’t even sweat it.”

“I have a friend in the area, she can go with you. She’s not from Delphos, and she’s experienced, so…”

“Should we go to the tea shop and meet you there?”

“Yes, head down and I’ll bring her there to meet you.”

“Okay. See you in a bit.”

“See you soon.”

Pandora gave Lorakai’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll find him.”

“I know, I know. I think it goes without saying… mouths shut on this. Delphos can’t know.”

Mayes mimed zipping their lips and throwing away the key. The pair of them headed out towards the tea shop as Lorakai left. They found  _ The Amaiva Tea Shop _ just behind the plaza, a simple building with plants by the windows. Heading in, they could see the job board by the back near the counter.

The pair of them scanned the job board, looking for any jobs that seemed to pay particularly well. Mayes pointed to one and grinned. “Pool boy.”

Pandora laughed. “Shirtless?”

“It’d suit him.”

The slightly nosy woman behind the counter wearing a flower covered apron, a tall halfling woman with some elven features and long blonde hair swept up into a ponytail, leaned over. “Are you looking for work?”

“Kind of,” Pandora replied. “We’re looking for a friend who would have been looking for work.”

“You didn’t see a triton, blue skin, big hair?” Mayes asked. “Fishy, fin ears?”

“Would have been with Lorakai, if you know him.”

“I did actually, and I do,” the woman nodded. “I’m Herella.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“The triton you speak of, I believe came in here with Lorakai yesterday. Lorakai is a regular patron, I have seen the triton before but I’m afraid I don’t know his name. And then he came in here again this morning, by himself.”

“Did he mention anything about the job boards?”

“Yes, he was in fact asking about a particular contract.”

“Which one?”

“I have since taken it down, but I think I still have it here somewhere…”

“Please,” Mayes urged.

She pulled out a bounty hunter contract, putting it on the desk. “All the slips had gone, so I just tucked it away, but… here.”

The two of them looked over the contract. It was from a township outside of Erran, asking for a team to bring the local governor the head of a monster masquerading as a woman who had been turning people into stone. The price for the contract was 2,000 gold pieces.

“He took this by himself?” Pandora gasped.

Mayes frowned. “He took this by himself, it seems.”

“Normally for things like this, you send in a big group!”

“Yeah, or you ask your friends to help you out.”

The woman at the counter seemed confused. “He went alone?”

“Apparently,” Pandora shrugged.

“As far as we can tell,” Mayes echoed.

She shook her head. “He told me he’d meeting up with some other people and going… Well, there’s a dwarven lady who you can find in the merchant’s district who has all the details. Her name is Iluide, and you’ll find her trading wood in one of the warehouses. I sent him that way, so I can only assume that your friend has gone that way.”

“How long ago?” Pandora asked.

“It was only this morning.”

“So he’s not that far ahead of us…”

“So we should be able to catch up,” Mayes finished.

“Okay. We need to move quick.”

“We’ve got to wait here to meet Lorakai’s friend.”

“Yeah, of course. Thank you very much.”

“No problem,” the woman replied.

Pandora picked up the contract. “Can we take this?”

“Yes, please, go ahead.”

  
  


It wasn’t long until Lorakai showed up, and he wasn’t alone. Standing next to Lorakai was a 4’2” satyr with ebony black skin, very large dark brown eyes, and white freckles all over her face. She had two black horns that curled out around two soft, fluffy ears, and big white furry hair that covered her head and her lower half. Her hooves clicked on the floor as she happily walked in, wearing a yellow shirt with green straps. She held a little bow staff, happily chatting away as she stared up at Lorakai.

“Hi guys,” Lorakai greeted. “Any luck?”

“We’ve got a lead,” Mayes replied.

Pandora showed him the contract. “He took this, this morning.”

Lorakai rubbed his face. “Ugh, okay…”

“We know who to talk to for the details,” Mayes explained.

“Well, this is Anathia.”

The satyr woman smiled up at them. “Hi.”

“Nice to meet you,” Pandora greeted. “I’m Pandora.”

“Hi, I’m Mayes,” Mayes offered.

“Nice to meet you two,” she grinned. “Lorakai told me all about you when I was on my way over here.”

“Anathia and I were in the army together,” Lorakai explained. “So…”

“Oh,” Pandora nodded. “So, Lorakai’s probably already told you, but we’re looking for Icarus. He took out a contract…” She showed him the paper. “And we think he’s taken this himself.”

Anathia looked over the paper, bumping gently into Lorakai. “Yeah, well, might not be related by blood, but he takes after you and your hard head.”

Lorakai rolled his shoulders, looking away. “Yeah, well, I don’t know what I think about that…”

The satyr chuckled. “Alright, we’ll go get him back.”

“There’s a dwarven woman that we need to speak to,” Pandora explained.

“Trading in wood,” Mayes added.

“In which case,” Lorakai stood, “I will leave this in the three of your capable hands.”

“We’ll get him back, Lorakai.”

“Thank you.”

“Come here,” Anathia beckoned, raising up her chin.

Lorakai grinned, stooping down so she could give him a kiss. “See you later, sweetie.”

“See you,” she smiled, giving him a pat on the cheek.

He headed back to Delphos, telling Pandora to message him if they needed anything. The three of them were left standing outside of the tea shop.

“Right, which way is it?” Anathia began.

“This way,” Pandora directed.

“Great. I’ve not been to Erran in ages, so I don’t know my way around.”

Pandora eyed her, smiling a bit at her warm accent. “Where are you from?”

“Oh, up in the Copper Hills.”

“Oh wow, okay. Yeah, it’s this way…”

Pandora led them down the streets. Anathia walked along with them, her huge fluffy tail flicking behind. The three of them made their way over to the Merchant's District. The tea shop owner had given them a description of Iluide as a female dwarf in her early twenties, stocky and round faced with sparkling blue eyes and brown hair, with a fringe over her forehead and the rest in two long braids. She wore clothes for working that were not local to the area, with deer skin gloves and a light shirt made of square patterned red and black fabric, along with canvas cloth pants and heavy boots. They were told they would find her carrying a work belt with a wood chopping hatchet on it, working in one of three warehouses in the district.

“If we quickly go through them?” Mayes suggested. “Or we could split up?”

“Sure,” Pandora agreed.

The three of them went their separate ways, walking in a circle before they spotted her all at the same time.

“Are you Iluide?” Pandora asked.

“Iluide, that’s me,” they smiled.

“Hi, um, we were sent your way by the owner of the tea shop- ”

“Is this about the contract?”

“Yes! Yes it is. We have a friend who may have been interested in it, and we were wondering if he had come and taken it.”

“Friend… when was this?”

“This morning. Triton.”

Mayes put their hands on their ears, miming fins. “Fishy guy.”

“Oh, the triton bounty hunter!” the dwarf nodded.

Mayes rolled their eyes. “Oh, he’s calling himself a bounty hunter?”

“Yeah, he came by this morning, he was asking about the contract. I told him what I’ll tell you, it’s open to anybody who wants to take it. He might be up against a few different groups who want the bounty. The contract is from the town of Lykos, outside of Erran. It’s about a day’s ride.”

Icarus and Pandora knew that Lykos was a part of the Omioma Region, a region renowned for sculpture and art, complete with an effigy garden full of statues of famous figures from history and politics.

“I think I went there on a school trip once,” Pandora replied.

Mayes chuckled. “Of course you did.”

“It was culture!”

“Uh-huh. Okay, is there anything else you can tell us?”

“I can tell you that it’s about a day’s ride,” Iluide continued, “So there’s a chance your friend hasn’t arrived yet. I don’t know whether he rented a horse or not, but renting one would probably be the quickest day to get there. Otherwise it’d probably be a two days walk. The fee for the contract is pretty high, 2,000 gold pieces. It’s because no one has been able to fulfil it yet, in three weeks.”

“In three weeks?”

“Yes, and several people haven’t come back.”

“Can you tell us more about the job itself at all?” Pandora asked. “Or is what’s on the poster all that is known?”

“Okay, well, supposedly, the bounty is a monster masquerading as a woman with snakes for hair, all with minds of their own. And with a gaze, that when she looks upon you, she can turn you into stone.”

Pandora frowned. “That’s like, a myth that I read about. A medusa, she has hair that’s all snakes, and she turns people to stone just by looking at them.”

“Well I mean, that tracks from what you just said,” Anathia shrugged.

“Maybe there’s some truth to the myth,” Mayes figured.

Iluide nodded. “Maybe so. I told him to seek out the Vice Captain Kyros in the town of Lykos, at the guard station.”

“Is he the one who put out the contract?” Pandora guessed.

“He’s the one who put out the contract.”

“What does he look like? So we can know to look out for him?”

“Haven’t got an idea. I was given the contract, I was coming this way and they said to just pin it up in every town I went through, so I’ve been doing that.”

“Have many other people come to you about it?”

“Two more groups from Erran have come through.”

“Big groups?”

“One was about five people, the other about ten.”

“Was that recently?”

“One was last weekend, one the week before.”

“So we might be there at the same time…”

“So I guess we should go rent some horses,” Mayes concluded.

“Alright,” Anathia smiled. “Let’s go for a road trip.”

As serious as the situation was, Mayes couldn't help but smile at the warm accent each time Thia spoke. “Sure thing.”

“Well, if you’re taking a big dangerous trip…” she patted down her pouches before pulling out some little whittled trinkets, depicting a bear, a badger, and a rabbit. “For good luck. It’s just been the Solstice…”

“Did you make these?” Pandora asked.

“Yeah, I make lots of them in my spare time!”

“They’re beautiful.”

Mayes took the bunny. “This is so cute.”

“You’re very talented,” Anathia smiled.

“Thank you very much honey,” the dwarf nodded back.

“Badger suits my whole look. Alright, let’s go find some horses.”

As they went, Mayes and Pandora regaled Anathia with the story of Thekla and the catoblepas.

She chuckled. “My, what adventures you guys have been having, huh?”

“Sounds like you’ve had some adventures,” Mayes returned. “How do you know Lorakai?”

“Well, we were in the army together, sugar.”

“How was that?”

“Yeah, I mean… it was the army.”

“Not much else to say about it?”

“He was my captain, you know?”

“Oh captain, my captain,” Pandora teased.

“Oh captain my captain, you don’t even know,” Anathia grinned. “When you hear him doing a drill, I tell you…”

“I can imagine.”

“Mhm. Very good man. Anyway…”

“I can imagine he would have been really handsome in his prime. Not that he isn’t handsome now, but like… you know.”

“No, he was…” Anathia whistled. “When he was in his prime, he was just absolutely divine. We had everyone talking about him, you know.”

“I’m sure.”

“He’s a beautiful man. Anyway, when he lost his leg, it was a blow for all of us, but I think that little Icarus kept him afloat.”

“They’re good for each other.”

“Yeah, they really are. I mean, I don’t know if you guys know, but, Lorakai used to have family?”

“No,” the other two chorused.

“Yeah, just before… just before he lost pretty much everything. He lost his wife and his kid. It was a cart accident, as far as I know. He lost both of them. He was never really the same after that.”

“That’s so sad,” Mayes frowned.

“Poor Lorakai,” Pandora agreed.

“That was about five years before he lost his leg and eye,” Anathia continued. “Then, he was in the Temple of Kord, and he met that little Icarus. I think they needed each other at the time.”

“Wow. He’s been through a lot.”

“Well, yeah. He’s still a good man, always has been.”

“They’ve both got thick skulls and big hearts,” Mayes teased.

“Yeah, they match each other perfectly. But he’s a good man, and I think Icarus did right by him.”

They headed across the city and into the stables where they met Thekla, the female half orc they had rented horses from before.

“Hi Thekla,” Mayes waved. “Long time no see.”

“Hey, how you doing?” she smiled.

“Good,” Pandora returned. “How are you?”

“Icarus just came by here this morning!”

“Of course he did,” Mayes sighed. “How long ago?”

Thekla quickly extended a hand to the satyr. “Sorry, nice to meet you! Thekla.”

“Nice to meet you,” Anathia grinned. “Thia.”

Thekla turned back to Mayes. “Um, that was about… pretty early, about 7:00am.”

Mayes sighed. It was now almost 5:00pm. “Can we also rent some horses?”

“Of course! I’ve got some options for you. Ponies will be about three gold pieces a day, draft horses about five gold pieces a day, and riding horses about eight gold pieces per day.”

“We’ll take the riding horses, sweetie,” Anathia decided.

“Do you need us to settle now?” Pandora asked. “Or when we come back?”

“When you come back is fine,” Thekla assured them.

Mayes looked around the stable. “Just out of curiosity… whatever happened to the catoblepas?”

“It’s funny that you ask that! I just recently sold it to a lovely half-orc...”

“Elven features?”

“Yes?”

“Yusuf?”

“His name was Yusuf!”

Mayes grinned. “I told him about it! I told him that you had it!”

“I’m glad that he came by, because it is hard to take care of that kind of thing here. It’s huge!”

“Yeah, sorry for just…”

“It’s fine, I just don’t have that much paddock space, and it was just standing there eating grass at one end…”

“And it smells.”

“And it stinks really bad, and all of my horses were like, crowding up the other end of the pen, not really sure what to do with themselves.”

“I’m so happy that Yusuf took up the offer of free catoblepas,” Mayes grinned.

“So, three riding horses?”

“Yes.”

Thekla fetched horses of appropriate sizes for the three of them.

“Did Icarus say anything when he came through?” Anathia asked.

“That he needed to rent a horse,” Thekla shrugged, “And it could be a few days. And he told me that he would pay me on the way back. So, I thought I’d extend the same offer to you.”

“Alright. Many thanks.”

“Thank you,” the other two overlapped.

Pandora patted her horse. “Okay, we ready to set out?”

“I think so,” Anathia smiled.

“Yeah, just grab some quick supplies for our journey, and off we go,” Mayes agreed.

The three of them picked up a few rations and rode out of Erran’s main gates, following the road to the town of Lykos. It was on the far east of the map towards the Shaiste, settled down just where the dry land became grassy land, sixty miles or so before the mountains.

They carried on for a couple of hours on horseback. As they went, they spotted a camp in the far distance. As they approached closer, it seemed to be a caravan of carts.

“Looks like we’ve got a little caravan going on ahead,” Anathia gestured.

Mayes peeled off from the others to get a better look. As they did, they realized it was the remains of a caravan. They could see tattered fabric, with one cart split apart. The strong smell of ozone permeated the air, as if there had been a storm. “There’s been some kind of attack here,” Mayes called back to the others. “But also, it smells like… smells like storm air.”

Pandora rode up beside them. “Kind of does, doesn’t it…”

“Let’s see what’s been going on here, then,” Anathia directed.

They dismounted, hopping down from the horses to move into the camp. Mayes found the remains of travelling supplies, noticing that a few of the carts seemed like cages that had been loosed and emptied. It became quickly apparent to Pandora that the caravan had belonged to Kondou.

“It’s the smugglers again,” Pandora reported.

Anathia raised a brow. “Again?”

“Yeah, we’ve seen these people before. Or at least, the group that they came from.”

Amongst the camp, they found a few ripped remains of a uniform, along with a Virtus badge with a bit of blood on it. There were burns on the ground surrounding the camp where bolts of lightning had struck the ground, and some paperwork regarding the capture and sale of various animals.

They also found a letter, looking hastily delivered by the way the ink had smeared as if it hadn’t been allowed to dry before it was stuffed into the envelope. It read,  _ Plans have changed. Turn around. _

As they picked their way around the camp, they found blood drops and hoof tracks heading north.

“Icarus has been here,” Pandora concluded.

“Absolutely,” Mayes agreed. “And he went that way.”

Anathia frowned. “That’s not towards Lykos, right? ...Well, we’re following him, not the contract.”

“Exactly.”

Searching around a bit further, they found some drag marks that led south of the camp. Following the trail, they found a handful of bandit bodies hidden behind a rocky outcrop, unable to be easily seen from the main route out of Erran. Patting the bodies down, they found more paperwork signed by Kondou. Pandora collected the papers and receipts of sale, as well as the hastily written letter, but the bodies had already been picked clean.

“I think Icarus was hurt here,” Pandora worried.

“Maybe it slowed him down,” Mayes suggested. “So we have a better chance of catching up. And also…” they shot a glance at Pandora, “Good to know that things are kind of going the way we expected.”

“Kind of, but…  _ plans have changed, turn around?” _

“Things are unraveling for him, so… less business.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I feel like I shouldn’t ask,” Anathia interjected. “So should we just move on?”

“Yeah, it’s probably better…”

After searching around, Pandora concluded from the dried blood that the fight had unfolded a few hours ago. The footprints in the dust had blown away a bit, suggesting that the battle happened earlier this morning.

“Okay, before we go, let me just take care of that little problem over there,” Anathia directed. She waddled over to the pile of bodies, took out her staff, and spun it around. Putting her thumbs together, she shot out a blast of arcane energy that set fire to the bodies. Mayes and Pandora watched the satyr disappear behind the rock, smoke rising as she returned.

“Wow,” Pandora blinked. “Okay.”

“Well we’re not just going to leave them here, right?”

“No…”

“Alright, then let’s move.”

They continued riding, following the direction of the tracks and the blood away from the town of Lykos. Pandora kicked her horse a bit faster, looking back to the others and urging them to do the same. The tracks they were following seemed to go relatively fast as well, continuing on for quite some time until they realized there were multiple hoof tracks on the ground. One crossed in a different direction, and they had to circle back to work out which tracks they should be following.

“What do you guys wanna do?” Anathia asked.

“Hm,” Pandora frowned. “Icarus would still want to be carrying out the contract, even if he had to deal with the smugglers. So maybe he changed his course as well, to get back on track to meet this captain.”

“Maybe he just went this way for a bit,” Mayes suggested. “To sort of…”

“Throw people off?” Anathia guessed.

“Throw people off, get off the main road…”

“And maybe he saw the smugglers like we did,” Pandora finished.

“Alright,” Anathia agreed, “Then we get back on track.”

They rode east for a while, riding wildly through the dirtlands for quite a distance before they came to a path marked by constant wheelmarks from carts that had gone back and forth this way for quite a long period of time. Heading that way for a while, they eventually came to a fork in the woods, leading left or right. There was no signage for Lykos, but the paths were labelled  _ Calousa _ and  _ Lake Errani. _

Lake Errani was a man made water reservoir halfway down the aqueduct from the Shaiste. It was in the right direction, but wouldn’t be easily crossed. Calousa was at the other end of it.

“So we should probably go up to Calousa, and then ‘round,” Anathia decided. “I know he can swim real good, but I don’t think he’s gonna take the horse through that way.”

“Horses can swim,” Pandora countered.

“Not through that kind of water.”

“He’d be faster without the horse if he did that,” Mayes agreed. “But then he’d be stuck from the other side of it.”

“So are we gonna head to Calousa?”

“Let’s go through the town.”

“We’ll probably get a break there too, ‘cuz it’s gettin’ kinda dark.”

“Yeah,” Pandora nodded. “We should think about stopping for the night.”

They took the left path, heading towards the town of Calousa.

Anathia trotted along beside them. “You ever seen a horse with six hooves?”

Mayes blinked, and then rubbed their face, grinning as they crumpled in on the horse.

“That got a laugh in the army, too,” she smiled.

Pandora smiled back at her. She wasn’t quite sure how old the satyr was, but she had seemed younger than Lorakai, and quite sprightly.

Following the tracks, they arrived at the town of Calousa just as it had reached early evening. They had been riding for quite a few hours now, and they were exhausted. The town was set in a valley, with the stretch of the water reservoir visible in the distance. Though the water seemed quite depleted, the land around the town was soaked as if it had been recently flooded. It was marshy underfoot for the horses, slowing their pace considerably as they approached.

As they rode on, Pandora and Mayes noticed the tracks of what seemed like deer hooves, along with something large and canine, stepping through the marshy, muddy land. The tracks passed over the path several times, weaving towards the town.

They spurred the horses on, trying to pick up the pace as they struggled through the swampy land. As they grew closer and closer, they began to hear the telltale sounds of fighting, with the clashing of weapons and people yelling in the distance. It didn’t seem like a professional battle between trained soldiers by any means, sounding instead like the screaming of townsfolk.

“Maybe we caught up to him,” Anathia suggested. “Come on, let’s get in.”

They rode forwards, joining the fray of a townwide fight back against several creatures. Shambling through the streets and the markets where the small town of Calousa was situated against Lake Errani, they could see several undead figures, as well as bestial creatures.

There were two hulking beasts prowling through the center of the market square, seemingly patchwork in body structure, looking as if they had been put together out of the parts of many different animals. The leucrottas had wide shaped heads that reminded the trio of badgers, with nine foot motley grey and brown bodies that seemed like a grotesque cross between a stag and a hyena. They were slick with oil, shining in the light of some of the lanterns hanging off the buildings. They had meaty legs that ended in cloven, deer-like hooves, and tufted, lion like tails at their rear ends.

They let out whooping laughs as they ran around, sounding like a cross between a manic human and a hyena. Their eyes glowed red as drool dripped down from the bony ridged teeth in their mouths. They stunk like carrion, putrid and nauseating as they moved quickly across the market square to corner individuals.

As they rode up to the edge of the square, they also saw smaller canine creatures alongside the two prowling mangy beasts, with patchy dark fur standing on end in aggressive fury. They could easily be mistaken for guard dogs if not for the two heads on each of them, snarling at different targets. Two of them stood undefeated while the corpses of two more were already scattered through the streets. They were fast, moving rapidly towards villagers who were trying to defend themselves with wooden shields, brooms, and rakes.

Amidst the creatures, shambling undead moved through the town, sopping wet and covered in marshy, swampy dirt. One was much larger than the others, an undead ogre standing at about 8’6” and swinging a club.

“This is a lot!” Pandora shouted.

Mayes stared out over the town. “What happened here?”

“I don’t know, but it looks like a lot of fun,” Anathia smiled.

They rode through the town before hopping off their horses, quickly tying them in an alleyway just outside the market square where the bulk of the fighting was going on.

Anathia charged through, spryly leaping over the fountain in the square and jumping over one of the two headed dogs to reach the ogre. “Hey short stuff,” she smiled.

Mayes and Pandora watched Anathia begin to pummel the beast with her fists before setting it on fire, thoroughly impressed.

Heading to the nearest undead figure, Mayes swung. The blade stabbed right through a large rotting hole where their heart would have been, and Mayes cringed.

One of the leucrottas ran forwards, lunging to bite Pandora. As it did, Pandora threw up an arcane shield. The creature smacked into it, and in anger, it attempted to stomp on her. When Pandora managed to dodge again, it moved away. The second leucrotta circled, heading for Anathia before biting her and stomping on her.

The ogre howled dumbly in pain as it burned, swinging its tree trunk club to bludgeon the tiny saytr in front of it.

Pandora rubbed her hands together, summoning a ball of acid. Flinging it forwards, the ball exploded outwards, curving around Anathia and burning into the ogre, one of the meatier undead figures, one of the leucrottas, and one of the dogs. She ran to Mayes, stabbing the undead figure near them with her dagger. A bubble of acid burst over its rotting, fleshy skin.

The burned dog charged furiously over to bite Pandora, but its two heads knocked together, missing. The other dog hopped up, running to Anathia with muddy paws. While she batted one head off, the other bit into her, poisoning her with its jaws.

The shambling undead figure tried and failed to slam into Mayes while another ambushed Pandora, pummeling into her. Yet another shambled around the fountain to join the others, while two more stumbled across the grass to meet Anathia, flailing out. The largest of the bunch dumbly meandered over to Pandora, wailing down on her.

Poisoned, Anathia jumped, backflipping away and landing an impressive thirty-two feet away by the larger of the undead figures.

“She’s like a grasshopper!” Pandora gasped.

Mayes grinned. “She’s a goat!”

Taking her quarterstaff in both hands, Anathia struck down against the undead figure, smacking it twice as bits of rotting flesh exploded off. “Those guys got poison, so be careful!”

“You okay?” Pandora worried.

“I’m not feeling great, but I’ll be alright, sugar!”

Mayes attacked the nearest undead figure, striking into it before running past to one of the leucrottas. The undead figure struck out to smack them as they went, but Mayes continued forwards, stabbing at the larger threat. The leucrotta retaliated with a bite before kicking Pandora with its hooves and running to the other end of the market. The other one ran to Anathia, biting and kicking before running away again.

As the ogre shambled towards Pandora, she threw down some powder, and a ball of fire exploded outwards. There was a massive boom as the plaza lit up. The ogre collapsed to the ground, as did a leucrotta, the two smaller undead figures, and one of the death dogs. “Got to clear the field!” she yelled, still wreathed in flame as enemies burned to a crisp around her.

Mayes smiled at her, delighted.

Pandora glared at the remaining undead figure. “Come any closer, I’ll burn you.”

It moaned, tilting its head. The other death dog charged forward to Pandora, missing a bite attack as more undead surrounded Anathia. As one slammed into her, the larger undead figure flanked Pandora before wailing down on her. Though it burned itself as it stepped too close to the flames, Pandora fell unconscious as it pummeled her to the ground, and the fire went out.

Anathia pulled a healing potion from her bag, downing it before taking another massive leap, backflipping across the square to land on the top of a market stall on the other side of the plaza.

Mayes charged towards the larger undead figure, swiping their sword through it. The leucrotta ran towards Anathia, its front hoves up on the market stall as it tried to bite and stomp at her, but she managed to dodge.

The remaining death dog went for Mayes, their two faces smacking together as they failed to bite. The undead figures left in the square continued forward, one slamming into Mayes as Anathia flourished their quarterstaff. She jumped down and onto the leucrotta, swiping with the staff to bludgeon it over and over.

Mayes swiped at the larger of the undead figures again, missing. Grabbing Pandora, they pulled her back as they rushed away. One of the smaller undead figures smacked into them, while the larger figure managed an impressive blow against them as they ran. Distracted with Pandora, the remaining death dog bit Mayes, sending poison into their skin.

The leucrotta at Anathia’s feet bit her again as the death dog continued ripping into Mayes, biting them once more. The undead figures pursued, slamming into them with varying success. The largest of the group lumbered around its allies, doing the same.

Anathia smacked the leucrotta with her staff again before turning around, tracing the symbol of Pelor with her hand, and shooting a radiant sun bolt at the closest undead figure. As the beam hit, she turned back to the leucrotta, bashing it with their staff again.

Mayes, eyes widening at Anathia’s spell, turned to pull a healing potion from their bag. Downing it, they reached into Pandora’s bag to feed her a larger potion. Pandora came back to consciousness with Mayes leaning over them, muttering a prayer to Pelor in thanks for Anathia. As they did, Mayes felt a warm glow in their chest, inspiring them.

The remaining leucrotta ripped into Anathia. Just as Pandora came up, spluttering, Mayes looked to see Thia crumple in front of the leucrotta.

Pandora scrambled to her feet. “Do we…? Do we finish this? I don't know, all out?”

“Pandora, pull out the big guns!” Mayes urged.

Once again, a column of fire exploded, safely surrounding Mayes as flames licked at the remaining enemies. The three smaller undead figures disintegrated as the larger one burned away, and though the death dog was still up, it was on its last legs.

“Remind me to never get on your bad side,” Mayes teased.

“It’s a good thing you’re my friend, huh?” she smiled. “Thanks for getting me up.”

The remaining death dog slid in, pissed, aiming its heads at both of them. Though it swerved to avoid Pandora’s remaining fire, it managed to bite into Mayes. Undeterred, Mayes ran forwards, feeling a surge of power as they swiped into the final leucrotta. They carved the creature down and rushed to Anathia, scooping her into their arms. As they did, they realized the two gold brooches on each of her shoulders were symbols of Pelor. Noticing that, they cradled her harder.

Pandora reached out, grabbing the death dog with both hands. Holding its face, the dog began to wither and die as she transferred its life energy into her own body. It collapsed, leaving the entire marketplace courtyard scattered with the corpses of various creatures.

Pandora ran to the others. “Is she okay?”

“I think so,” Mayes replied. They gently shook her, waking her up.

“You are so cool!” Pandora gushed.

“I might have been a little bit rambunctious,” she grinned.

“You’re amazing,” Mayes declared.

“Oh, thanks. Got knocked down by that wriggly dog. I’m kind of exhausted, though. Did you guys finish all that?”

“Mostly,” Pandora nodded.

“Pandora has a habit of setting everything on fire,” Mayes explained. “And being amazing.”

“I’m gonna be honest, it’s been a while since I’ve been in a fight like that,” Anathia chuckled.

“Wouldn’t know it, you were incredible to watch.”

“Thanks!”

“You’re a follower of Pelor?” Mayes prompted.

“Yeah!”

“...Can I talk to you about that at some point?”

“Of course you can sugar, no worries.”

“Thank you.”

As they sat chatting in the sightly burning marketplace, a few people came tentatively out of the buildings, peeking their heads out.

“It’s okay!” Pandora called. “It’s safe!”

A dwarven man in their sixties came towards them, with a long greying beard pulled down into a braid, wearing a short palla with long sandals up to his knees. “It’s definitely safe?”

“Yeah,” Mayes assured them. “What happened here?”

“Well, for the last couple of weeks our town has been flooded. Someone came through this morning and moved all of the water magically out into the dry lands. But I think that must have spurred some of the creatures down there, and spurred some of the bodies. They came and attacked the town.”

“This guy… blue skin, big hair, fishy fin ears?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

Mayes sighed.

“How long ago was he here?” Pandora asked.

“Must have been about midday,” the man explained.

Anathia looked up. The sun had almost completely set by now. “I don’t know about you two, but I need to take a rest.”

“Sure, we can find somewhere to sleep for the night,” Pandora agreed.

“Do you know which way he went?” Mayes continued.

“Um, he headed over to  _ The Black Ox Inn,” _ the dwarf pointed. “Down the road, I can show you where it is.”

“Please,” Pandora replied.

“We were starting to revere him as a bit of a hero for clearing the town of water. We’d been asking Erran for help for a couple of weeks, no one was coming over. Thought we were going to have to give up our businesses. This has been a bit of a spanner, but…”

“Well at least it’s all over now,” Anathia smiled.

“I think you’re our heroes, too. I’m sure we can wrangle you some free beds at the inn if you want to stay, and dinner.”

The trio happily agreed, and he led them to  _ The Black Ox Inn. _ It seemed like the only tavern in the area, with a painted sign of an ox’s bum with a dangling tail. The dwarf led them inside, and as they sat down to rest, they were brought plates of food and wine as the townspeople told them of the triton who came through, incredibly lifting chunks of water into the air and moving them out into the fields.

“He’s been busy,” Pandora muttered.

“Not that you aren’t heroes as well,” the dwarf smiled. “I mean, you just saved our marketplace!”

“We just wanted to help.”

“Well, the least we can do is put you up for the night.”

“Thank you,” Mayes replied.

“Did he not stay around, then?” Anathia guessed.

“He said he had too much to do,” the dwarf explained, “And had to carry on to Lykos.”

“Okay, so he still went that way,” Mayes nodded.

“How far is that from here?” Pandora asked.

The man shrugged. “Probably about another half day’s ride.”

“He’ll have to stop at some point too, so we’ll start out early tomorrow?”

“We can do that,” Anathia agreed.

“We can catch up,” Mayes followed.

“For now, let’s have some food and rest. When I was your age, I could do this all day, but not anymore.”

The three of them had food, drink, and rest. They went upstairs to find modest but comfortable beds for the night. They were quite far out of Erran by now, and there was definitely more eastern Calderan influence visible in the architecture and craftsmanship of the rooms. 

Thia regaled them with a few old war stories, describing her time with Lorakai and her experiences with a younger Icarus. Apparently, he used to be even shorter than she was before a sudden growth spurt at sixteen. The three of them were quite comfortable to rest safely overnight in the tavern.

  
  


In the morning, the villagers made a humble breakfast of eggs and cold meats and breads for them. They insisted on no charge, offering to let them stay at the inn again if they ever passed through.

“Well, we do need to come back through this way, hopefully,” Pandora considered.

“Thank you so much,” Mayes offered. “And I hope it doesn’t take too long to clean up the market.”

“Oh, I’m sure it will be fine,” the man grinned back.

“Thank you so much for your hospitality,” Pandora replied.

“Thank you for your help. I hope you find your friend.”

“I’m sure we will,” Mayes returned.

They set out early, leaving the town of Calousa with their horses at the break of dawn, and still picking at the remains of their breakfasts in handkerchiefs as they carried on towards Lykos to reach the town shortly after midday.

Lykos, as many of the small towns they had encountered, was full of small pretty white houses with terracotta roofs. The town was flooded with statues in the streets, with shops selling statues of different sizes and workshops for working with clay and porcelain and marble. Small art galleries were full of local artists putting their work on display. The whole town seemed to be built around art, even boasting of shops where art could be inked onto your skin.

“We’re looking for Captain… Kyros?” Pandora guessed.

“Vice Captain,” Anathia corrected.

The three of them split off, scoping around the streets of the main town square to find the barracks. Instead, they found a tiny guard hut with only one single room in the small building. Pandora found the space, messaging the others to guide them over.

The hut was manned by an elven teenager. He had tan skin and shaggy mouse brown hair and glasses, wearing a guard’s uniform that didn’t quite fit. He sat in the hut on a wooden chair.

“Hello there,” Pandora greeted. “We’re looking for Vice Captain Kyros?”

The man hurried to his feet. “That’s me!”

“That’s you?”

Anathia raised a brow. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” the man smiled.

“Nice to meet you,” Pandora continued. “We are here about a bounty hunter contract that’s been put out in the area?”

“The monster masquerading as the woman,” Mayes clarified.

“You and everybody else,” the man chuckled.

“I mean, we’re particularly after a blue skinned triton who may have been inquiring about it.”

“Yes, I do remember him.”

“Yeah, more him than the contract.”

“Arrived last night.”

“Did he stay in the area, do you know?” Pandora asked. “Or did he go straight to where the contract is based?”

“He went down to  _ The Hard Tack Tavern, _ I believe. Slightly on the outskirts of the town.”

“Is there anything you could tell us about the job?”

“I can tell you that the woman is a fierce looking creature, sounds like something out of a myth. She’s got snakes for hair, all of them seem to be alive. She came to our town from several towns, after apparently leaving Erran. Crossing from small town to small town, leaving people in her wake turned to stone. Apparently, her face is terrifying to behold, and looking her in the eye… that’s it for you. She was found hiding in the house of a noblewoman here in Lykos, the man turned to stone where he had been standing in the doorway. As if he had opened the door to her and immediately been turned to stone, and she just snuck into the house. She was pursued by our guard captain, Perimedes, but she turned him to stone as well. Which is when I put out the bounty hunter contract, to bring her head back to town.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Mayes commented.

“Well, thank you for your help,” Anathia replied.

“It’s okay,” the man smiled. “I can tell you that, supposedly, she’s been hiding out in our effigy garden. I don’t know whether you’ve heard about it, huge garden full of statues.”

“Of course. Makes sense, if she’s making more people into stone, it’ll just look like statues.”

“It’s a good place to hide,” Pandora agreed.

The Vice Captain nodded. “It’s our winter season too, so it’s not open, but we have some groundskeepers, and they’ve said they’ve seen new statues appearing within the walls with no warning that anyone’s been bringing in new statues, so. There’s been quite a lot of bounty hunters going after going after her.”

“And not coming back?” Anathia guessed.

“No one yet. Some coming back without half their team.”

“Well, I suppose you’ve got a lot of new effigies, then.”

Mayes shook their head. “We need to find Icarus, fast.”

“I guess we go straight there?” Pandora suggested. “Or do we go to the tavern he was staying in?”

“Maybe he might have stayed another night,” Anathia replied.

“Okay. Maybe they know some more.”

“Yeah,” Mayes agreed. “Let’s go check the tavern first.”

“It’s right down there, that street,” the Vice Captain pointed. “You’ll see a couple more gardens with some statues in them. None of them made by her. And then you’ll see the tavern.”

“Thank you, baby,” Anathia smiled.

The man looked a bit shocked and confused at that, but he let them go, and the trio continued on down the street towards the tavern. Even just after midday, the tavern was slightly rowdy. It was loud, and they could hear music playing from the inside amongst the noises of dice rolling and people shouting and laughing. They stepped in to the sight of wine being sloshed over the floor as barmaids tried to wipe it up. The three of them picked their way carefully through to the bar. Based on the clothing of the patrons, it was easy to assume that at least half of them were bounty hunters from different places in Caldera.

At the bar, another elven woman with shaggy mousy brown hair stood, wearing glasses.

“By any chance, you related to the Vice Captain?” Anathia wondered.

She blinked. “No?”

“My gosh, you look all very similar around here, I’m sorry.”

“Well, can I help you? Can I get you a drink?”

“Sure, I’ll have a glass of wine,” Mayes agreed.

Anathia shot them a look. “We got time for a drink, honey?”

“We’re asking her things, I can drink quickly.”

“Sure.”

The bartender poured some sweet wine for Mayes.

“We’re looking for a blue fella,” Anathia explained. “Trident, got fish ears and big hair.”

“Oh, you’re talking about Icarus!”

“That’s the one, honey.”

Mayes downed their wine. “That’s him.”

“He made quite a storm last night,” the bartender smiled.

“Literally, I bet.”

The bartender raised a brow. “No, not literally…”

“Is he here?” Pandora asked.

“Oh no, he headed off with that friend of his.”

“Friend of his?”

“A young guy called Percy. He’s been here for the last couple of weeks, gambling a lot. The two of them got into a little bit of a fight with some of the other patrons here last night, caused a bit of a ruckus.”

“What have you been doing, Icarus?” Pandora sighed. “We leave you alone for twenty-four hours!”

“Percy is a bit… handsome, but he’s very messy. He’s been hanging around the town for a few weeks… you’ll be able to tell it’s him, he’s got curly blonde hair and a gold circlet with little wings coming out at the sides of it. And a big shield.”

“What is he, like a fighter, or…?”

“To be honest, I have no idea. He’s normally too drunk to have any sort of conversation. He is cute though.”

“That sounds like someone Icarus would get on with,” Mayes chuckled.

“To take a person on a bounty hunt?” Pandora countered.

“How long ago did they head off? Did they go straight to where the contract is supposed to be?”

“Um… I think they were definitely gone by the time the sun rose.”

“Pretty early,” Anathia nodded. “Can you tell us which way to go?”

“Of course!”

“Thanks,” she smiled back.

The bartender pointed them out of the town, telling them which track to follow. The path led a few more miles down to the massive effigy garden, the center of tourism for their area. It felt much colder in Lykos than it had been in Erran, and as they left, they could see the mountain ranges around the Shaiste in the far distance.

Thia’s hair grew a bit poofier in the cold air. “Alright, let’s go down that way then.”

The trio headed down to the effigy garden. The garden itself boasted the talents of many acclaimed sculptors in the area, with carved inscriptions about the artists on informational plinths across the path.

“Oh, this is nice, isn’t it,” Anathia smiled.

The garden drew considerable crowds in the summer months, though they were closed in the winter for maintenance and upkeep on the hundreds of sculptures that resided within the walls. Though the works within the effigy garden contained sculptures in all manner of subjects and styles from more conceptual pieces to cold, solid plants and trees amidst the living greenery, the majority of the collection was made of works of people. There were figures of living locals and legends alike, including war heros, gladiators, politicians, and poets, all captured eternally in marble, limestone, and granite, with some even formed in bronze or iron.

They arrived at the effigy garden in the early afternoon. Though it never grew particularly cold in Caldera, now at the deepest point of winter, they felt an unnatural chill in the air. Their breath shimmered in front of their faces with each exhalation.

As they approached the twenty foot cobblestone walls around the outside of the garden, they saw several makeshift camps set up. Some of them contained mercenaries around tables, strategizing or practicing swordplay, while others were empty.

The gates had been locked for winter, but the lock had since been busted off and thrown open. Inside, they could see stretches of garden that had been kept frequently watered by the groundskeepers. Manicured lawns, bushes, and flowers were laid out below while huge trees stretched up to throw shade from the midday sun.

There were no tourists roaming the pathways. Even in the daylight, the garden had a fairly eerie atmosphere as they stepped through the walls. Statues stood silent and vigilant in every available space within the compound, their eyes glazed and fixed in one position. As they moved further, they felt the uncomfortable feeling of being watched prickling at the hairs on the backs of their necks.

The bright afternoon daylight played tricks on their eyes, and they could swear they saw statues moving as the shadows of the sun and the clouds passed over them. Familiar figures surrounded them, including heroes from the War of the Three Crowns, a statue of the Imperata in a slight state of disrepair, a depiction of Castor Allandrus, and three similarly dressed statues of Arkud, Leonida, and Hammon, the High Councilors of Erran.

They passed through a section of garden filled with Lords from all over Erran and the surrounding region. There, they found a statue of Lord Pešek, with Damianos beside him.

In the heart of the garden, they noticed the flickering light of lit braizers around a central stone gazebo. As they began to approach closer through the sprawling grounds, they once again heard the sounds of fighting. The sudden loud roar of a dozen men and the clash of swords echoed beneath a boom of thunder in the otherwise clear sky.

Mayes looked up at the sound. “That’s our boy.”

“He’s here,” Pandora confirmed.

The stone gazebo had carved ionic pillars reaching fifteen feet up in the air, supporting a stone roof that extended out thirty feet in every direction. Above the heads of fighters, more stone statues could be seen within.

They moved quickly as the sky darkened with storm clouds, more claps of thunder, and flashes of lightning. As they arrived at the gazebo, they could see at least twenty men swarming the steps of it, engaged in combat. Amongst them, the heads of more stone statues from mercenaries and bounty hunters seemed to have been turned to stone in the midst of the fight. They had their swords raised and their shields up, screaming expressions frozen on their faces.

Suddenly, a wave of them were blasted back ten feet. There on the steps was a stone statue wearing a winged circlet on its head. Behind it, a woman with hissing snakes for hair cowered. In front of it all, sword raised against the swarms of armed fighters with blood dripping down from his brow, flagging only a little, was Icarus.

  
  



	27. Heart of Stone, Episode Twenty-Seven

Mayes, Pandora, and Anathia were looking up the right hand steps to the stone gazebo. Spread out before them, mercenaries and bounty hunters abounded in different clothing from areas all over Caldera. Four were armed with crossbows, and a number more stood with melee weapons. There were at least two different groups swarming the steps.

Anathia ran, jumping off a mercenary’s head before landing next to Icarus, staff already drawn. “I didn’t think that we’d find you making all this trouble, Icarus.”

Icarus gave a tired laugh, blood dripping down his face as he held up a shield full of arrows.

Anathia whacked someone holding a spear, landing several blows until the man dropped to the floor.

“That’s only because I weakened them for you,” Icarus teased.

Anathia chuckled. “You wish, sweetie.”

Mayes charged up behind the nearest archer, stabbing them right in the back.

Two of them turned on Anathia. “You’re helping a monster!” one shouted.

“I don’t think that’s very nice,” Anathia returned. “He’s just a fish.”

One jabbed their spear into her as the archer by Mayes turned, stepping back to fire an arrow into them. Three of the mercenaries with spears advanced on Icarus, but he managed to knock them all back with his shield.

Another archer fired and two arrows soared, flying in a slight curve before burrowing into Icarus’s shield. The other two archers on the far left steps fired, aiming for Pandora and Mayes. Strangely, both arrows swerved in midair, turning instead to slam into the cursed shield Icarus had picked up in the labyrinth.

Pandora blinked. “What?”

Mayes glanced back at the arrow in confusion. “Uh… Thanks?”

“We’ll talk about that later!”

The archer by Mayes pulled out a dagger, slamming the blade forwards to stab them as Mayes took a half step back.

Behind the statue with the winged circlet, who they had to assume was Percy, the medusa appeared. She began to slide around, moving behind the low wall where a column had collapsed nearby. Her eyes flashed, but the mercenary she had been aiming for quickly ducked away.

“Melina, get back!” Icarus urged.

“You’re gonna be overwhelmed!” she cried.

“Get back!”

The medusa ducked back down behind the wall. Icarus lifted his hand towards the storm cloud above, pulling down lightning towards the three mercenaries closest to him. All three of them started to smoke as they were fried by the electricity, dropping to the ground.

Waving his hand, Icarus’s spiritual weapon formed in the air, swinging out to attack the one nearest the medusa. He turned back over his shoulder to his friends. “Good to see you guys!”

Pandora shook her head. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do!”

She threw balls of fire into the fray. One of them hit, engulfing one of the bounty hunters and burning his clothes and skin. “Agh! This isn't worth it!” he screamed.

Wreathed in flame once more, Pandora ran to him. As she stabbed him with her dagger, he went down. A member of the second mercenary company charged at her, swinging into her with his sword as he stepped too close to her flames, burning himself.

Three more advanced on Icarus, climbing in with their swords, but only one managed a hit against the triton.

Another mercenary charged through the battlefield. Anathia grinned. “Alright, let’s see what these old bones can do, huh?”

She pulled a potion from her bag. Drinking it, she began to grow. As she stretched to ten feet tall, her weapons grew as well.

Mayes pushed through the crowd. In a flurry of blows, their sword carved through, absolutely decimating another mercenary before they slid apart into fleshy chunks on the ground. “You best have a good explanation for this!” they yelled to Icarus, running over to Anathia. “We are trusting you here!”

A few mercenaries stared in shock as Anathia grew. One of them stepped forward to bravely strike, but she easily knocked him back.

Another decided to target Mayes instead, managing a small cut in their side as yet another charged to Pandora, delivering an even smaller cut as they managed to burn themselves in her flame. “Not worth it!” they winced.

The two archers on the far stairs rushed forwards, trying to get a clear shot at Mayes and Pandora. One let an arrow loose towards Pandora, but once again, the arrow swerved in midair and headed towards Icarus, piercing him just underneath his shield. The other archer gave his companion a strange look before firing towards Mayes. Once again, it swerved, slamming into Icarus’s shield.

The remaining archers, noticing the pattern, fired directly at the triton. Two more arrows lodged into Icarus.

Behind him, Melina shouted. “Do you want me to do anything?”

“Please, take cover!” he called back. “Please!”

She ducked down behind the wall, slinging handfuls of rocks from her position in the gazebo. Her hair full of snakes writhed, and a flurry of hissing faces shot out, nipping at the nearest mercenary.

“Melina, please!” Icarus begged. “I told you to get back!”

He stepped between Melina and the mercenary just as they swung, whacking into him. As Icarus retaliated, the man went down. Reaching up to the sky with his sword, he pulled down another bolt of lightning. Two more mercenaries went down as another was badly burned. Icarus’s spiritual weapon swung out, pushing back yet another bounty hunter as he defended Melina.

Pandora let out another wave of fire, shooting out projectiles that burned into the four nearest her. The final member of the second mercenary group went down, leaving just one group left on the battlefield. Quickly turning, she stabbed the nearest archer with her dagger.

The giant form of Anathia punched down towards the mercenary nearest her, and they immediately fell. Spinning her hands around, she summoned a cone of fire, blasting the remaining archers.

Mayes snuck behind the archer near Pandora, stabbing into them. The two mercenaries with spears remaining hadn’t quite yet learned that getting close to Pandora was a bad idea, and one of them burned themselves as they stepped near her to stab. The other charged to Icarus. As the spear made contact, the mercenary was slammed backwards by a wave of thunder.

_ “Stay. Back!” _ Icarus growled.

Noticing the larger target, four archers fired at Anathia. All four arrows once again turned in midair before flying towards Icarus. As another three lodged into his shield, one stabbed into his side. He had at least four arrows sticking out of his skin.

Seeing this, Melina stood up, glaring out across the battlefield. “Leave him alone!”

There was a cracking sound as the mercenary began turning to stone in the exact position they had been standing in.

Icarus rushed forward, calling out to Kord. “Save her!”

A massive wave of thunderous arcane energy rolled out from him, sending two more mercenaries to the floor as Icarus’s spiritual weapon smacked into yet another.

Pandora sent a necrotic spell over towards one of the remaining mercenaries while stabbing her dagger into a second. Anathia slammed her staff into the ground before smacking into one of the bounty hunters surrounding her. In a flurry of blows, she pummeled the small crowd.

Mayes slid behind Pandora, annihilating the bounty hunter nearby with their sword. “Set ‘em up, knock ‘em down.”

As one of the mercenaries tried to slump away, Mayes took another swing. The mercenary sidestepped, walking his neck right into Pandora’s dagger.

The final archer ran back, taking a shot at Mayes as they went. As he moved back, Icarus sent out a final spell. Swiping out with his sword, necrotic energy flung out towards the archer. The mercenary began to crumple from the inside through his armour, turning to dust as they collapsed to the ground.

Icarus was breathing heavily, falling heavily to his knees in exhaustion as the remaining arrow slammed into his shield.

Mayes hurried over to him. “Hey buddy.”

“You good?” Pandora worried.

He glanced between them, confused. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving your ass!”

“What are you doing here?” Mayes returned.

From behind them, Melina stood, covering her eyes. “Icarus? Tell me you’re okay!”

“I’m okay!” Icarus called back. Giving the others a quick pat, he turned to fumble over to Melina, helping her wrap a blindfold around her face. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. I take it you trust these people?”

“These are my best friends.”

“That’s good, that’s good…”

“We need to see if we can help Percy.”

“Yeah, um… Okay.”

Icarus took her hand, guiding her with a hand on her back to meet the stone face of Percy. “Do you think you can do anything?”

“I’m still trying to figure this out…”

“I know.”

“Let’s sit, and recuperate our strength, momentarily.”

“Maybe you can tell us what’s going on?” Pandora prompted.

Mayes shot Icarus a tired look. “Please.”

Icarus turned around with a sigh. “Mayes, Pandora… and… Anathia?”

The huge form of Anathia gave a friendly smile from above before sitting, giving the other two a pat. “I think we can just take a sit down for a minute. Like you said, decompress, sugar.”

As she sat, Icarus gestured to the medusa. “This is Melina.”

Pandora and Mayes gave tentative waves. “Hi…”

“Thank you for helping me,” she replied.

Mayes gave a slow nod. “No problem.”

Pandora surveyed the scene. “Care to tell us what’s going on here?”

Melina turned her blindfolded face in Icarus’s direction. “Where should we begin?”

“It’s quite a long story,” Icarus apologized.

“Your friend here turned up with Percy,” she gestured blindly in the direction of the statue wearing the circlet. “Meaning to attack me.”

“We were told from the local town that the story was about a monster masquerading as a woman. Idiots… Melina is just as much a victim as anyone else.”

“Luckily, your friend here had the kindness and the patience to hide from me, and ask questions before he tried to cut off my head.”

“Sounds like Icarus,” Mayes smiled.

“I’m here in Lykos because I was chased out of Erran.”

“By Kondou,” Icarus finished.

Mayes and Pandora frowned. “By Kondou?”

Melina gave a sad smile. “I have quite the story to tell you.”

Mayes held up a hand. “Icarus, before we listen to this… um, Thia and I got poisoned yesterday, and it’s not quite left our systems.”

“There was nothing we could really do,” Pandora explained.

Icarus quickly stepped over. “Give me your hand. And grandma, just, um, give me your fingertip?”

Anathia reached over, and Icarus sent his healing magic through them both.

“Feel better?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Mayes replied.

“Thank you sugar,” Anathia grinned. “Now, I think I’m gonna leave y’all to do this conversation. I’ll make sure no one is coming close, okay?”

“That would be appreciated,” Melina agreed.

“No worries.”

The giant form of the satyr began to trot off before taking an absolutely massive jump, leaping almost a hundred feet off as the ground shook. “I don’t know how long I’m gonna be like this!” her voice called back.

Mayes stared off in the direction of the giant satyr. “Well. That was eventful.”

Icarus shook his head in confusion. “Why is grandma here?”

“Lorakai sent her with us,” Pandora explained.

“Why?”

“I’m sorry,” Melina interjected, “But what just happened?”

“You wouldn’t believe it if we told you,” Pandora chuckled.

“But you’d believe anything if you just saw a goat fly the way we just did,” Icarus laughed.

“Okay, Kondou story!” Mayes urged. “You can’t just tease me with information!”

“Sorry! Kind of hysterical, got a bit of whiplash going on. You guys… are here!”

“Yes.”

“You found my note?”

“Yes, and we tracked you here.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Well we did.”

“You took a contract by yourself, you big goof!” Pandora retorted.

“Big goober,” Mayes teased, punching him.

Icarus turned back to the blind medusa. “These are my best friends. Mayes, can you say something?”

“Can I… say something?”

“That’s Mayes. And Pandora?”

Pandora gave Melina a wary look. “Hello…”

“Hi Pandora,” Melina smiled.

“This is Melina,” Icarus explained.

“Hi Melina,” the others chorused.

“Melina Kondou.”

The others let out sounds of shock and surprise as the information settled. Melina grimaced. “Angelos Kondou is my husband. Although, it’s a bit more…”

“Complicated?” Icarus suggested.

“More complicated than that.”

Pandora settled on the ground. “Let’s sit down for this.”

“So,” Melina began, “You probably have some questions following that information.”

Icarus sat by her, pulling arrows out of his side. “I did.”

“You can start where you want to start,” Mayes offered, “But Icarus probably told you that we’ve had some run-ins with Kondou.”

“Yes. He told me some things, but then we were swarmed.”

Icarus reached out, holding her hand as she talked. She squeezed it.

“I was a socialite of sorts, I suppose, in Erran. My father was quite an affluent merchant, and marrying Angelos at eighteen was a very good business transaction for him. I had a vague idea, I suppose, about what my husband did. But I tried not to look into it. It was much easier to ignore it, and live my high flying life with the money and the lifestyle. Which was very enticing, I suppose. And, my husband was very rarely around, which meant… I didn’t care for him, but it didn’t really matter, because he didn’t get in the way of my fun.”

“When was it that you were married to him?” Pandora asked.

“It’s been about six years. And that was all well and good, until I fell in love.”

Icarus squeezed her hand again.

Melina swallowed. “With my… my handmaid.”

“I can only assume he didn’t take kindly to that,” Mayes guessed.

“No… That’s when I really started to find out what my husband was made of.”

Icarus looked away. “He threw her handmaid into the fighting ring that we found. To the beasts.”

“Shit,” Mayes muttered.

“Oh… I’m sorry,” Pandora replied.

Melina nodded. “That was the end of Zenia. I was… furious, as you could imagine. I didn’t even hurt at first, I just got angry. I started tearing his office apart, looking for proof of what he did, so I could expose him to the council. And I threatened him with it, when I found it. I found his documents of the Typhon Assembly, and his business. And I told him I would ruin him. And he laughed at me. And he threw me into… a pit. Full of snakes. He left me there for two days.”

“Medea tortured Melina,” Icarus continued. “With magic. Relentlessly.”

“Glad the bitch is dead now,” Mayes returned.

“Yeah.”

Melina took in a shaky breath. “Me too. Angelos came back to me after two days. Apparently, my body wasn’t even visible at the bottom of the pit, for all of the snakes. I spent my time in there praying to any god who might listen to me, reaching out to anything that might be able to help me. And that’s when I changed, into this. People say it must have been a demon, or a devil. But really, to maintain any sanity, I have to believe it was one of the gods that did this to me so I could protect myself. I fled from my husband and turned everything around him into stone. All the beasts in Caldera, worth nothing to him as stone. The Typhon Assembly, they turned on me too, and hunted me until I had to flee the entire city.”

“That was about a year ago?” Icarus clarified.

“Mhm.”

“You’ve been on the run ever since,” Mayes finished.

“I’ve been moving from small town to small town, trying to keep a low profile. Hiding everywhere I go, and trying to reach out and contact anybody who might actually want to help me stop them. But everywhere I end up, ends up in some kind of accident, or someone turning on me just for what I look like. And they call me a monster, and they hunt me.”

“We want to stop them.”

“I knew he was a terrible man, but...” Pandora shook her head. “This is evil.”

Melina put a hand over her face, starting to sob. “He is evil, he is...”

Icarus shuffled closer, pulling her into a hug.

“What do you want to do?” Pandora asked. “Do you want to get as far away from here as possible? Or do you want us to deal with him?”

“I don’t know yet,” she sniffed.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Icarus assured her. “But there’s something else, um… the wine?”

“Yes, yes you said it must be important, um… Among my husband’s paperwork, I found details on something that the Assembly used as a code. They called it the Sharressian Code.”

“Like the Goddess,” Mayes nodded.

“Yeah, there was all this Sharressian iconography in the old portion of the Typhon Assembly,” Pandora recalled.

“As soon as I read it, I realized I’d seen it in use dozens of times at dinner parties and events,” she continued. “And I couldn’t believe it could so easily slip under the radar.”

“What is the Sharressian Code?”

“It’s a code used to indicate secrets using the pouring of wine. The server would ask,  _ Red or White? _ And the assembly member would respond,  _ Server’s Choice. _ And the color of the wine they poured would indicate the answer they were waiting for.”

Pandora went white. “Adamos…”

Icarus gave a solemn nod. “Yeah.”

Mayes turned to the others, confused. “What?”

Pandora held her face in her hands. “Adamos is part of the Assembly!”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“When we were at the event, where you stole that letter,” Icarus explained, “Pandora and I were talking to Adamos. And he did it,  _ Server’s Choice.” _

“A waiter came up to him and asked if he wanted red or white,” Pandora repeated. “And he said  _ Server’s Choice.” _

“Got red.”

“Red means, usually, that they’re going to kill somebody,” Melina explained.

“From everything we’ve seen, it seems like they’re planning on killing Kondou,” Mayes reasoned.

“Yeah, but, can’t be too careful,” Icarus replied.

Melina gave Pandora an apologetic shrug. “Adamos is one of them.”

“Do you know any other names?” Mayes asked.

“I do. Stavros Monou, he’s a member of the Merchant’s Guild. General Katia Vassallou…”

“No!”

“And her husband, Zyki.”

“Of course they’re married,” Mayes scoffed.

“Councilor Ivan Leonida, and both his sons.”

“Alexis?”

“Oh wow,” Pandora gasped. “Alexis is part of it, too.”

“Yeah,” Icarus confirmed. “He doesn’t want to be.”

“Councilor Brutus,” Melina continued. “And an important man, I believe he’s the head of the order, Lord Constantine Nephus.”

“He deals in arms,” Icarus explained. “And he owns a lot of land over in the Western Marshes. No idea what he looks like, where he lives, anything about him apart from that. Very secretive man, as far as I know.”

Pandora still held her face in her hands. “But Adamos is part of it!”

“This is only some of them,” Melina apologized. “I know they have dozens and dozens of members. It’s a huge network.”

“There were at least sixty people when we were there,” Mayes replied.

Pandora lifted her head. “Persephone and Roys are in danger.”

“We need to help them,” Icarus agreed. “And Melina? I trust you.”

Melina let the tears fall down her face. “Thank you. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

“I promise you, I will not let anything happen to you. Okay? As long as I draw breath, you’ll be safe.”

“Thank you, Icarus.”

“If you want to come back to the city,” Mayes offered, “We can help.”

“We have people that will help,” Icarus explained.

“We know powerful friends.”

“First, I have to try and help Percy,” she replied. “I believe this has helped once before… close your eyes.”

The three of them looked away as she pulled the blindfold off. After a moment, they heard the slow cracking of stone.

“Oh, goddammit that hurts so much!” a voice groaned.

“Can we open our eyes?” Icarus asked.

Melina quickly pulled down the blindfold. “Yes!”

Percy turned to face them. Though Percy had previously been described to Pandora and Mayes as a young man, the person before them had quite feminine features with curly brown hair cut short, and a chest bound down.

“Hey,” Icarus smiled. “God, it’s good to see you.”

“Hi. Oh, she’s still here- !”

“No no no! Be cool!”

“...Okay?”

“It was an accident. I promise you, she’s a good person.”

“I promise you I’m a good person!” Melina echoed. “Please listen to him!”

Percy gave a nod. “Yeah, okay… I trust you.”

Icarus quickly explained the situation, and Percy put up her hands. “Okay… that’s a lot of information. Um, hi. Perseia.”

“I’m Mayes,” Mayes nodded.

“Hi,” Pandora shook their hand. “Pandora.”

“These are my best friends,” Icarus introduced.

“We heard that you two got along,” Mayes nodded.

Percy chuckled. “And I’ve been told all about you.”

“Of course, Mister Blabbermouth over here.”

“Especially if there was drinking involved,” Pandora teased.

Icarus shrugged. “What? I’m proud of you guys.”

“And Icarus was helping me out of some… gambling problems,” Percy blushed.

Icarus gestured over to one of the petrified mercenaries. “You don’t need to worry about them anymore.”

“Seems like it. Can’t capture me!” she sang.

Icarus gave her a fistbump.

“So now what?” Pandora prompted.

“There’s still the matter of the contract,” Mayes replied.

“The bounty, the 2,000 gold. I mean, I’m all for not killing a good person, but the 2,000 gold…?”

“They’ll just keep sending people if we walk away.”

Icarus searched the statue garden for a mangled statue, cracking the head off of one with his glaive before holding it in his hands. Explaining his plan to Melina, she took off the blindfold and closed her eyes so he could get a good view of her. The snakes on the top of her head bobbed slightly in the breeze. Concentrating, he sent out a wave of arcane energy that swept over the stone, forming it into the shape of Melina’s face.

She posed, opening her mouth in a grimace. “How’s my expression? Do I look like I’m dying?”

“Really good,” Icarus chuckled.

As he worked, Mayes took out their sketchbook, drawing out the bizarre scene with the giant satyr looming in the background.

Percy appraised the statue. “You do look a little bit like you’re dying. It’s kind of cute though.”

Icarus did his best to shape the stone head into a replica of hers. Even the snakes did their best to hold the pose as he worked. After a few minutes, he was finished.

“That’s pretty impressive,” Pandora commented.

“2,000 gold,” Mayes repeated.

Melina tied the blindfold back on. “You can tell them my head turned to stone when you cut it off.”

“Do you want to see it?” Icarus offered. “I’ll close my eyes so you can see it.”

“...I don’t really want to know what I look like when I’m dying.”

“Oh! Sorry, that’s kind of inappropriate…”

“It’s okay, I’m sure it would be interesting, but…”

“Your snakes did really well, too.”

She smiled, tickling one. Icarus bopped one of their noses, and the little snake flicked out its tongue at him.

“We can leave you with Thia,” Icarus offered. “While we go collect the bounty. She’s another person that I trust.”

“Do you want some time to think about what you want to do?” Mayes asked.

“I think so,” she agreed. “Maybe if I continue to hide out here for awhile, maybe I can scavenge from these… corpses… something to fashion myself some sort of a headscarf to cover the snakes. And, I suppose, it’s going to get late, and we can’t head out of Lykos tonight anyway no matter what I want to do. So, perhaps you should find somewhere to rest, and I will meet you in the morning on the outskirts of town.”

“Sure. Or we can come set up camp with you,” Icarus offered, “So you’re not alone.”

“If you’re leaving the, um… the giant satyr with me, I’d be more than comfortable with that, I think.”

“Okay. We’ll go talk to her.”

Pandora rooted through the bodies, pulling off a cape for her to use as a headscarf. She pulled it on, and one snake peeked out before ducking back inside.

Searching through the bodies, they found a total of seventy gold pieces, a pair of engraved bone dice, and a very nice looking set of chainmail. Looking closer, Icarus was able to identify it as adamantine. “This is nice… Do you think it’d fit?”

“Try it on,” Mayes encouraged.

“Oh, I’m gonna…”

Mayes counted out the coins. “What’s 70 gold split between us?”

“And me!” Percy grinned.

Mayes gave a nod, splitting the change into four even piles of 17.5 gold each.

Percy watched Icarus take off his old armour, replacing it with the stronger kind. “Can I have your scalemail?”

“Of course!”

“Thanks!”

She stripped out of her leather armour, replacing it.

“Suits you,” Icarus grinned.

“Thank you!”

“Let’s head back in, then.”

Mayes handed him his pile of coins. “The money goes towards your debt,  _ sir.” _

Icarus rolled his eyes. “That’s why I came out here.”

“I know.”

“Don’t need to be reminded.”

“It’s done now.”

“It’s sorted,” Percy hushed them. “Stop feeling bad about it.”

Pandora took her pile of coins. “Okay, so we’re gonna tell Thia what’s happening and then head back in?”

“Yeah, we’ll go do that,” Icarus agreed.

“Let’s make a big show of the fact that we have the head of the beast, when we leave. Just in case there’s any more out there. So they don’t come bother you.”

“That sounds good,” Melina smiled.

The four of them left her in the effigy garden, leaving Anathia to protect Melina through the night.

“Wow, what a tough fight!” Mayes called as they exited the garden, shouting across the field of waiting mercenaries. “But we were victorious! That monster sure is dead!”

“Very dead!” Pandora loudly agreed.

“So dead!”

“Look at the head of this monster that we have slain!”

Percy flexed their muscles. “We are victorious!”

The group of them gloated past the remaining mercenaries, who seemed quite frustrated.

“Better pack up and go home, everyone!” Pandora urged. “Nothing more to kill!”

“No more show!” Mayes agreed. “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!”

Percy cackled into her hands as they made their way back down the path towards the town of Lykos. Checking the position of the sun, it didn’t seem to be too far past noon.

Icarus held the sculpted head of Melina by one of the snakes. He kicked the door open to reveal the small elven man sitting in the kiosk. Icarus slammed down the head, startling him.

“Oh! Oh, okay! Looks like you’ve slain the beast!”

“The beast is no more,” Pandora confirmed.

Icarus leaned on the table, looking pissed. “And the beast slayed my grandmother. The goat lady that was with them? So yeah, I want more than 2,000.”

The man blinked in surprise. “Oh! Um… I can do a little bit more, I mean, this is kind of the top of our budget in the winter… 2,400?”

“Sure.”

“Okay!”

“It’s a small price to pay for his grandmother,” Pandora grumbled.

“And for so many lives,” Mayes lamented.

The guard swallowed. “You’re right, you’re right… it’s a shame we can’t turn Perimedes back…”

“I guess you’re the captain of the guard now,” Pandora concluded.

The guard stopped a moment as the realization settled. “I guess I am…”

“Happy promotion day.”

Grimacing, he unlocked a small safe, taking out a few pouches of gold to weigh on a scale. He pushed several pouches over, leaving only one small pouch of coins left in the safe.

“Thank you for your service,” Mayes nodded.

“Thank you, honestly,” the man earnestly replied. “You’ve saved our town.”

Icarus took another look at the mousey guard and sighed, tossing the extra 400 gold back at him.

His face lit up. “That’s very kind of you!”

“Yeah, well… I was never close with my grandma.”

“We’ll make sure that you can have free accommodation anywhere in town!”

“Thanks,” Mayes replied. “You’re gonna do great, kid.”

“Thank you, sir!”

“Good luck,” Icarus smiled.

The three of them left the one room building. Percy was waiting outside for them. “You get the money?”

Icarus tossed them a bag of 500 gold.

“Thank you very much!”

Icarus handed Pandora and Mayes their own bags, and both of them immediately passed the bags back.

“This is for your debt, sir,” Mayes directed.

Noticing his expression, Percy bumped Icarus’s shoulder. “I mean, it would be a pretty stupid excursion if you didn’t pay off your debt, Iccy.”

“Shut up,” he retorted, begrudgingly accepting the bags.

“So, what are you going to do next?”

“Go pay off my debt.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got time to kill.”

“Got to wait for Melina,” Pandora nodded.

Mayes looked out across the town. “I do kind of want to check out some of the art places around here. There’s a place that does, like, permanent skin paintings.”

Percy gasped with excitement. “It’s called the Gilded Quill!”

“Oh, you’re already a connoisseur?” Mayes grinned. “You’ve been quilled?”

“I have been quilled. It’s called the Gilded Quill, and they will use a very fine needle and a very talented hand to ink onto your skin in a way that will stay forever.”

“Where is it?” Icarus asked, intrigued.

“It’s a couple streets over, I can take you there.”

“No I meant, where’s yours?”

“In places that you haven’t seen, mister!”

“Apparently so,” Icarus laughed. “Yeah, that sounds fun!”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Mayes assured them. “I just want to have a look at the artistry.”

“Then I will take you there,” Percy smiled. “Let’s blow all of our winnings!”

“No no,” Icarus laughed. “I’m not doing that.”

“We’ll just have a look!” Mayes urged.

Pandora glanced over the bags of gold. “Does that cover everything for your debt? I can’t remember how much it was.”

“Yeah,” Icarus nodded. “And a little bit extra for spending.”

Percy led them through the streets of Lykos to  _ The Gilded Quill Inke Shop. _ She pushed open the door and stepped inside a beautiful marble interior with ink artwork covering every single wall, a sandstone floor, and long low benches with silk coverings for people to lounge on as they were being inked. “Papa, are you in here?” she called.

Icarus furrowed his brow in confusion. “Wait, your dad owns this place?”

Percy gave him a look. “No! It’s Papa!”

By the sandstone counter at the back, a tiny bald goblin man with a long thin white beard and inked designs all over his head stuck his head out, revealing piercings all up his long ears. “Mm, customers!” he grunted.

“Yes, perhaps,” Mayes replied.

“Interesting. I’m Papachristodoulopoulos.”

“...Bless you?”

“Papachristodoulopoulos,” the man repeated, slower, holding out a tiny goblin hand to shake. “You can call me Papa.”

“I will, yes,” Pandora replied, shaking the hand.

“Your first time getting inked?”

“Yes?”

“Fantastic, take a seat.”

“Okay… This all seems very…”

“Fast?” Mayes suggested.

“Yeah, very spur of the moment…”

“No no no,” Papa waved a hand. “Just you wait until my daughter comes out. It will be a very slow experience. Ralla! Ralla, we’ve got customers!”

Percy sat by one of the windows, lounging back and kicking her feet up with amusement as she watched and waited. Icarus shot her a bewildered look, and she grinned.

“Are we being held hostage?” Mayes whispered.

“No,” she laughed. “Don’t be a coward.”

“I am absolutely not a coward.”

A huge door at the back of the shop opened. The door was at least ten feet high, with a door handle in the middle and another much lower one that opened to a much smaller, goblin sized door.

Out of the larger door stepped a nine foot female firbolg with a warm brown coat and white hair, wearing round glasses with magnifying lenses that flipped down.

“This is my daughter, Ralla,” Papa introduced.

Icarus smiled up at her. “Hey!”

“Hi,” she smiled. “How is everyone?”

“Well, thank you,” Pandora politely replied.

“Good, good.”

“Never done anything like this before.”

“Oh, don’t worry about him. Do you want to get inked? We get a lot of tourists who just want to look.”

“No, I want to get inked,” Mayes decided.

“Okay.”

Icarus smiled at Mayes. “You know what? Yeah, me too. Why not.”

“We can do that.”

“We’re graduating,” Mayes reasoned. “So, why not?”

“Yeah,” Pandora nodded slowly. “Let’s do this as a graduation present to ourselves.”

“Hell yeah,” Icarus beamed.

“Amazing,” Ralla smiled. “Well then, who wants to go first? We can discuss what you want.”

“Alright. I’ll go first,” Icarus volunteered.

“Fantastic.”

She led him over to one of the benches, sitting him down for a consultation before pulling a curtain across. Icarus sat behind the curtain for about twenty minutes, discussing what he wanted. The conversation couldn’t be heard beyond the curtain, dampened with a privacy charm.

When the curtain was pulled back, Ralla stepped out again. “Okay, not long. I’ll speak to the next one of you just so I can get everything prepared and drawn up.”

“I’ll go,” Pandora offered.

As Pandora went behind the curtain, Mayes flipped open their sketchbook, furiously designing as they searched for ideas. As they did, the goblin peeked over. “You are very talented.”

“Oh, thanks. My mom taught me how to paint.”

“You would make an amazing skin artist.”

“Uh… It’s not really my profession, it’s more of a hobby…”

“You can be a skin artist as a hobby,” the man shrugged.

Mayes gave a polite nod, continuing on with their sketching.

Over the next few hours, they all received their skin art. Ralla used a very fine needle dipped into different colored inks, inking their skin with a surprisingly dexterous hand. Her tail often flicked out to collect supplies she needed, bringing them forward. She pulled down magnifying lenses to get close into the details, and the three of them watched in awe as the designs sunk permanently into their skin with intricate details. By the time it was late evening, they were all done.

Pandora had a string of triumphant, victorious laurel leaves on her collarbones, similar to the laurel leaves Pešek had worn when he was crowned Armiger. Icarus had a full black sleeve on his right arm in the Errani art style, full of waves crashing over each other and leading up to a sunburst on his elbow below a huge rolling storm of clouds by his shoulder. Mayes had a design in the traditional Vishima style, with calligraphy ink depicting a crane taking off from a pond, wings spread in flight as the sun rose in bright red block ink behind it. Their design took the longest, but Ralla replicated Mayes’ art style flawlessly, slow and careful as she filled in all the lines as if it had been done with an ink brush.

Pandora handed over 30 gold pieces for hers while Icarus and Mayes spent 65 and 70 gold each. Halfway through the process, Percy informed them that she was going to head back to the tavern they had been staying in to get some drinks. Before she left, she leaned in quietly, telling them that if anyone asked, she was Perseus, not Perseia.

The three of them left a while later, feeling quite sore. Thankfully, Papa was able to offer them a magical salve that would stop the ache by the next day.

They headed back to  _ The Hard Tack Tavern, _ where they were offered a free room.

“Do you want to be roomies, Pandora?” Mayes asked.

“Yeah, we can bunk,” she agreed.

As the three of them headed up to the bedrooms, Percy flung open the door to Icarus’s room, leaning out into the hall. “How are they?”

Pandora held open the neck of her chiton. “Look! I love them!”

“They look amazing!”

Icarus showed off his arm. “Got a sleeve.”

“I can’t show you mine,” Mayes shrugged.

Percy frowned. “Why not?”

“I’d have to take all my clothes off.”

Percy gave them an encouraging look, but Icarus stepped between them. “I showed you mine!”

“Yeah?”

“I need to see yours now!”

Percy gave him a flirtatious grin. “Then you’re gonna have to find it.”

Icarus grinned, glancing back at the others. “I’ll see you guys later.”

Mayes glanced past Icarus, noticing the single bed inside. As Icarus headed past, Mayes smacked his butt. He laughed, heading inside as Percy winked, saluted, and closed the door. Mayes saluted back, chuckling.

They spent their evening in the tavern, making good use of the cheap food and drinks. Percy and Icarus joined them for dinner later. Pandora gave Icarus a teasing nudge. “Did you find the tattoo?”

“One of them,” he grinned.

  
  


Over the course of the evening, Perseia explained that long ago, her grandfather had received a prophecy that she would be the one to kill him. When she was born, he locked her and her mother in a wooden chest and threw them out to sea. After growing up and learning of the prophecy, she decided to run away, though she was considering killing her grandpa anyway for throwing her in the sea.

“Self fulfilling prophecy,” Icarus chuckled.

“Yeah, he should have just been really nice to you,” Mayes agreed.

“A prophecy like that,” Pandora shrugged, “You kind of have to.”

“Yeah, might mess around and kill my granddad,” she chuckled. “You know, gotta do something fun.”

“Live a little,” Icarus laughed.

“So, my mom grew up and married an old man who was an asshole. And so I decided to cut off all my hair and run away, and be Percy instead of Perseia for awhile.”

“You’re living it flawlessly,” Pandora declared.

“Thanks! I have a lot of gambling debt.”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

Mayes gestured to the bag of gold. “Not anymore.”

“No… she still does,” Icarus replied.

“Oh.”

“Just not in this town anymore,” Percy grinned.

“Well, you can stay here for a bit then,” Pandora reasoned.

Mayes gave her a grin. “Rack up some debt, move on to the next town.”

“You could come back to Erran with us for a bit,” Icarus offered.

Pandora turned back to Percy. “Have you got debts in Erran?”

“Not yet,” she grinned.

“What games do you play?” Mayes asked.

“Everything.”

“Cards?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to play cards?”

“Do I want to play cards… Do you want to play a round of Avandra’s Fortune?”

“Sure.”

“It’s not a card game, but we did get those cool bone dice that we can play with,” she explained. “You roll two dice, if they add to a seven or a twelve, you win. Simple as. So… put in a gold to start? You can put in two gold if you want to, and roll three dice.”

“I’m gonna put in one gold.”

They both rolled the dice. “Four,” Mayes reported.

“Two,” Percy returned. “The money stays in the middle.”

Mayes rolled again. “Seven.”

“Four. You take it. Dammit! Anyone else?”

“This is how you got into debt,” Pandora teased.

“Everybody throw a gold in?”

“Sure.”

Icarus passed over a coin. “Yeah, why not.”

The four of them rolled. “Nine,” Mayes shrugged.

“Twelve,” Icarus chuckled.

Pandora grinned. “Seven!”

Percy sighed. “Nine. Okay, it goes to Icarus.”

“But I got a seven!”

“Oh, then you split it. Let’s do it again!”

They went again. Icarus and Mayes rolled sevens while Pandora and Percy rolled sixes. “Ugh, I’m just hemorrhaging money!” Percy complained. “Again!”

“Avandra is not smiling on you right now,” Pandora teased.

“Avandra has never smiled at me once.”

They rolled again.

“Seven,” Pandora reported.

“Six,” Mayes followed.

Icarus rolled. “Three.”

Percy crossed their arms. “I think these dice are cursed. Do you think they’re cursed? They have skulls on them.”

“Do I get the whole pot then?” Pandora asked.

“You do.”

Mayes put up their hands. “I yield.”

Icarus did the same. “I yield.”

“It gets really fun when you’re playing with like, forty people,” Percy explained.

“I can see that. Alright, I am gonna go turn in for the night, because I’m kind of exhausted.”

“We potentially have a very long journey ahead of us tomorrow,” Mayes agreed.

Pandora stood. “Yeah, we should get up early and get back.”

“Well, sleep well, everyone,” Percy smiled.

“You coming to bed?” Icarus asked.

“Yeah.”

Icarus and Percy disappeared into their room while Pandora and Mayes slept in the modest twin beds in their own room. After a night’s rest, they collected their horses, meeting Melina and Anathia on the outskirts of Lykos in the morning. Anathia, now regular size, walked Melina with an arm through hers. Melina’s hair was covered in the scarf, her eyes still blindfolded.

“Have you come to a decision?” Mayes asked.

“I have,” she replied. “If you will… aid me.”

“What do you want to do?” Pandora prompted.

“I’ve decided, it’s probably time that I stop running. If I keep running, people are going to keep trying to kill me. So, I would like to return to Erran, if the group of you would aid me in finding my husband, and… putting an end to him.”

“Nothing would give me more pleasure.”

“Fully support that,” Mayes agreed.

“I appreciate that,” Melina replied. “In return, you can take any of his assets. I don’t care. His money, his artifacts, information.”

“He probably has, I mean, you found documents…”

“I can show you where they are in his house.”

“Please.”

“My house.”

“Let’s see what he’s done with the place.”

“You’ve got our protection,” Icarus vowed.

“It would be best that we attack by night,” she strategized.

Pandora nodded. “It will take us awhile to get back anyway. So, by the time we do get back, if we ride most of the day, we’ll be back late.”

“And then we can make our way in through the trench. I had to escape that way, so I’m pretty confident even now I could navigate my way back through the city.”

“When we get back,” Mayes continued, “Thia, would you mind taking the horses?”

“Sure, I can do that,” she smiled. “I’ll tell Lorakai that you’re all back too. He’s been worried sick about you.”

Icarus sighed. “Yeah, yeah. All of you were in on this, huh.”

She looked up at him, beckoning him closer. He bent over, and she clipped him around the ear.

“Hey Iccy, mind if I ride with you?” Percy asked.

“Yeah, can do,” he agreed.

“I’ll take Melina, if you guys want,” Anathia offered. “I’m nice and small, so you won’t get jostled off.”

“Sounds good to me,” Melina agreed.

The six of them climbed on their four horses, making their way across to Erran. About halfway through the journey, Anathia straightened. “Hey, Percy?”

She glanced over. “Yeah?”

“You ever seen a horse with six hooves?”

Percy clung onto Icarus’s waist, almost falling off as she laughed.

Anathia gave Melina a pat. “I promise, if you could see right now, you’d think it was the funniest thing.”

“I’m sure I would,” Melina grinned.

  
  


They rode hard through the day, with just a brief rest for lunch before riding hard through the afternoon without stopping.

They came up to Erran far past the sunset, near midnight, avoiding the sentires on the walls. They jumped off the horses, passing the reins to Anathia. “You guys look after yourselves,” she advised.

“Thank you so much, Thia,” Pandora replied.

“Icarus, I’ll go tell Lorakai that you’re home safe, but you better go home safe to him after doing this now.”

“Yeah, of course,” Mayes nodded. “Appreciated.”

She gestured to Mayes, beckoning them down to her level. “Stay safe.”

“We will.”

“And you,” she pointed up to Pandora. “Alright, catch y’all later.”

A chorus of hooves began to head off. Percy started to head with her. “I will catch you later?”

“Yeah, sure,” Icarus waved.

“Looking forward to checking out the gambling scene in Erran.”

“Don’t get in too deep,” Mayes warned.

“I won’t, I won’t. It’s just… this seems more your speed, and I don’t want to mess things up.”

“It’s fine,” Icarus assured them. “We’ll see you soon.”

Percy gave him a little kiss, and then headed off behind Anathia, beginning to talk her ear off as they headed back into the city.

Melina let out a breath, readying herself.

“Would you like to take my arm?” Icarus offered. “We can head in. Or, would you like to take your blindfold off now?”

“...If you stay behind me.”

“Of course.”

“You can lead the way,” Mayes agreed.

Melina gave a nervous laugh. “Just don’t meet my eyes.”

“Sure.”

She took the blindfold off, and tension settled over them all as the realization of what they were about to face settled. Though the Assembly wanted to tackle Kondou already, there was something more triumphant about doing it themselves. They headed around the walls to the access point that led to the colossal trench underneath the city. Melina navigated her way through, and they walked for nearly another hour before she found a ladder set into the wall, and they emerged in a nearby alleyway.

She pointed to high, rocky walls. “This is it. The Kondou estate.”

“Do you have guards on duty?” Pandora asked.

“We definitely used to, but I’m sure I can take care of them.”

“Okay. Well, we’re here if you need us to do anything at all. We’ve got your back.”

Mayes scanned the building. The walls led rather high up, but they could just make out the tops of the second story windows over the walls. The shutters were open upstairs, but there were no bright lights on inside.

“Who’s good at climbing?” Melina asked.

“That would be Mayes,” Pandora replied.

Mayes appraised the wall. “I can give it a go, I could throw some rope over.”

“I could open a hole in the wall,” Icarus suggested.

“That would be noisy,” Pandora and Melina chorused.

“True.”

Mayes approached the wall. “Let me try to climb first.”

The rocky stone wall was made of stacked slabs that made for perfect handholds. Their movements were silent as they reached the top, throwing their silk rope down. The rest of them climbed up quietly.

Lush gardens surrounded the inside of the walls, with a huge sandstone house beautifully crafted in the center. There were balconies at every upstairs window with shutters open and billowing ivory curtains flowing slightly in the evening wind, save for one upstairs window with the shutters and curtains closed. Melina pointed to it. “That’s the master bedroom.”

Mayes took everything in. “Do you think we could… if we tied something on to the rope, we could hook on to one of the balconies? Climb up?”

“Could be worth a try,” Icarus agreed. “Save going through the whole house.”

“If anyone’s got anything, all I’ve got is a crowbar and a dagger.”

“Crossbow bolt? It would be able to swoop around?”

“Okay, I can give it a go.”

“It’s worth a try, right?”

Pandora frowned at Icarus. “It’s not gonna catch in your shield, will it? Which we still haven’t talked about.”

“It’s not aimed at me!”

“Well neither were any of the bolts aimed at us.”

“...I don’t know…”

“I’m not firing it,” Mayes reasoned. “I’m just throwing it.”

Icarus lifted his shield, just in case. “Okay…”

As Mayes went to throw it, Melina suddenly stuck out an arm, hushing them. She looked down at the courtyard, where a guard was walking through. She clicked her teeth, making a small noise that caused the guard to look up at her. They instantly turned to stone.

“Feel good?” Icarus chuckled.

“Sometimes,” she admitted.

Mayes pulled out their dagger, tying it to the rope and throwing it across to the balcony. It missed, swinging down the wall, but they managed to catch it before it clattered on the floor. Icarus tapped Mayes on the back, offering a bit of assistive magic as they tried again. On their second try, using the crowbar this time, the end of the rope hooked around the balcony and swung around before pulling tight.

“Nice,” Pandora whispered.

“Thanks.”

“Good job,” Icarus smiled.

“I should probably go first,” Melina advised. “Otherwise, you might look at me.”

The three of them pulled the rope taught as Melina crossed. She wobbled quite a lot, hanging down as she wrapped her legs around it, but she managed to move across it upside down before sliding onto the balcony at the other side.

Icarus gave the other two a pat on the shoulder, offering a bit more of his magic to them. “Glad you guys are here.”

“Thanks,” Mayes nodded. “Pandora, you want to go next?”

“Sure,” she agreed. She deftly stepped up onto the rope, using her tail to balance as she walked across it like a tightrope, jumping down silently. “Come on!”

Mayes held the rope as Icarus did the same. Though not quite as well balanced as Pandora, he was much faster, bounding across the rope before hopping onto the other side.

Mayes peered up to the window. “Pull me as I’m climbing.”

They swung down to the ground level before climbing, and the others easily hoisted them up and onto one of the balconies with open shutters. They quickly undid the knot, coiling their silk rope back into their bag. As they did, Melina turned her head to look back down to the grounds, turning another guard to stone.

“Lead the way,” Pandora whispered.

They climbed through the open window into quite a gaudy room. The inside of Kondou’s house was cluttered with expensive artwork, plants, and furniture. There were murals painted on the walls of all sorts of exotic scenes. It was all quite ostentatious throughout an open plan space with clashing colors and textiles, with jewel tones and furs surrounding mounted animal heads on the walls.

Melina cringed, her jaw dropping in disgust. “What has he done to my house?”

“Money doesn’t account for taste,” Mayes muttered.

“Clearly not,” Pandora agreed. “It's like every room is a boudoir.”

“Okay okay, let’s get this over with,” Melina urged. “He’s probably asleep if the curtains are shut in the master suite.”

“Will there be any guards walking around the house?”

“I would hope not.”

As they moved into the hallway, the floor immediately creaked quite loudly under their feet. There was movement behind the closed door down the hall, but the sound was soon accompanied by a loud snore.

“Before we move, just wait one second,” Icarus whispered. Lifting his symbol of Kord, he sent out a spell to search for any traps in the area. “Bedroom door has got a trap on it,” he reported.

“That’s new,” Melina frowned.

“Save that for me,” Mayes assured them.

Pandora smirked. “Suppose he’s a paranoid guy now.”

Mayes investigated the hinges of the door, finding a springtrap by the lock that would have released a poison gas. With their years of training at Delphos, they easily disabled it.

“It’s gone,” Icarus declared. “Good job.”

“No problem.” Mayes slowly opened the door, bowing their head so Melina could pass.

Melina kept her head down, walking in and raising a hand for the three of them to wait in the doorway. The trio blocked the door, cutting off Kondou’s escape.

Melina silently walked over to the window, drawing the curtains open and throwing bright moonlight into the room before walking over to sit on the end of the bed. From where the three of them were standing, they could see her silhouetted by the moon, the snakes moving slowly above her.

He began to shift in the bed. Her eyes were closed at first, but then Angelos Kondou started to wake up. He grunted, blinking slowly in the light. The four poster bed was surrounded by sheer curtains on each post, all drawn closed.

He looked up to her silhouette, mumbling in confusion as he began to wake. “What the fuck…?”

Melina opened her eyes. “Hello darling. I’m home.”

Immediately, Kondou scrambled up and out of the bed, starting to move towards the doorway. “Melina!”

Turning around, he saw the trio blocking the doorway. “No no no no no no no…”

He moved up to the wall at the other end of the room, scrambling for the multiple weapons mounted up on plates. A few clattered to the ground before he grasped at a sword. Turning around, Melina had already moved up to him.

She caught his eye, and his feet froze in place as his lower body began to petrify. “Please Melina, don’t do this. Honey, I can give you anything you want.”

She leaned in, all of her snakes hissing, licking out to taste the air. “Sweetheart, you’ve given me exactly what I want already. This will be it, Angelos. This is your downfall. My only regret is that you’ll not be around to watch the rest of the Assembly turn to ashes.”

She took the sword from his hand as it began to petrify. The stone continued raising up his chest, and he began to choke as it turned his lungs to stone. It climbed up his neck, then his jaw. She raised the sword as it engulfed his face, saving his eyes for last, which remained fixed on her in utter desperation right until the very end.

The blow from the sword shattered him into pieces.

Melina let out a shriek of devastation and joy as he fell into stone shards on the floor. Icarus crossed over to her, pulling her into a hug. She put her hands over her eyes.

Pandora hurried to her side. “I bet that felt amazing.”

“Nothing has ever felt better,” she laughed, tears spilling over.

“Incredible. We should raid this place as fast as we can,” Mayes urged.

“Take anything you want. And let’s tear the rest of it down.”

“Can you point us towards his office?”

“That I can.”

Icarus helped her put the blindfold on, but she knew the house well enough to walk through it herself. She led them through her home to the office, throwing the door open. It was just as ostentatious a room, with multiple animal head trophies and horns mounted above the desk. “Feel free to raid it as you see fit. I’ll work on getting that secret compartment open.”

Pandora nodded. “Let’s do this.”

They spent the next half hour going through Kondou’s things, tearing through with little care for making a mess. Among it all, they found a banded agate gem, a chalcedony gem, a golden yellow topaz, a jasper, and a violet garnet, plucking the jewels from goblets and pieces of jewelry. They grabbed an additional 2,000 gold pieces from the room, adding a few smaller art pieces into the Bag of Holding, including an amber statue of a priest in a rich purple robe set with stones, a peridot statue of an owl wreathed in green flame, and a silver vase. Mayes packed away a disguise kit. They also found a Potion of Tongues they recognized from the Opus Auction House.

Pandora pulled out some kind of medicinal potion, and an oil that seemed to be magical. “I’ll look into that properly later.”

Finally, they found a very fine looking greatsword that thrummed with arcane energy.

“Oh, this is buzzing with magic,” Pandora gasped.

“I want to know what that is,” Icarus agreed.

Mayes passed the bag over. “Put it in the bag.”

“It’s all going in the bag,” Pandora agreed. “We can properly look into it later.”

It took awhile, but Melina was eventually able to open a secret compartment in the desk, pulling out some paperwork. It was more of what they had seen in his lair with the smugglers, but most importantly, they discovered a document sealed with the sigil of the Typhon Assembly. Pulling it open, they were shaken by what they read on the inside.

The letter contained orders to have the Beast assassinate the Sanctor of the city at the inauguration dinner for the new Armiger. The Sanctor was then to be replaced with Councilor Adamos.

Each of the three High Councilors had their own role. The Sanctor was the one who dealt with external matters relating to the wider continent and the other city states. They were the only one who could sign off on documents that pertained to the movements Erran made as a city state towards the rest of the continent.

As they read over the page, they didn’t have any time to react before Icarus felt the familiar thrum of a sending spell being received through his tooth necklace.

Icarus put a hand over it, looking down. “Damen?”

But it wasn’t Damen’s voice that replied.

_ “It’s Orion. Listen closely. You need to lay low. Come to Helena’s and tell no one. Damen’s been taken.” _

  
  



	28. The Red Thread, Episode Twenty-Eight

_ “It’s Orion. Listen closely. You need to lay low. Come to Helena’s and tell no one. Damen’s been taken.” _

Pandora glanced over, noticing Icarus’s face fall in fear. “What is it?”

Icarus squeezing the tooth in his hand.  _ “Taken? Taken where? On our way. Just dispatched Kondou. See you soon.” _

“Icarus?” Mayes worried. “Is it Damen?”

“No. It was Orion. Damen’s been taken somewhere.”

Pandora’s eyes widened. “What?”

“I don’t know. We gotta lay low and get to Helena’s house, now.”

“Okay.”

Mayes began to scoop up the papers scattered across Kondou’s desk. As they did, another message from Orion came through the necklace.  _ “Don’t know where yet. Please be careful. They’re looking for you too.” _

Icarus gulped.  _ “Message received. We will be careful. See you shortly.” _

“What is it?” Pandora urged.

“They’re looking for us, too.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

Mayes shook their head in disbelief. “How?”

“I don’t know! Everything will be explained when we get there.”

Melina looked blindly between them. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve gotta go.”

“Okay?”

Icarus kept his eyes carefully on the floor. “We’re going to our friend Helena. We can trust Helena, we can trust Orion. Please, come with us.”

“Okay…”

“We need to move across the city and keep a low profile.”

“They’re looking for you?”

“Yeah.”

“We should look for something in the wardrobes to try to disguise you, to move through the city easier.”

“Just got a disguise kit,” Mayes nodded.

“Is the wardrobe back in his- your room?” Icarus asked.

“Yes, it should be,” Melina replied.

“Okay. Come on, Pandora.”

Pandora swallowed heavily, nodding. “Okay.”

They headed back to the bedroom, pulling open Kondou’s wardrobe for any clothes that might disguise them.

Pandora rooted around in her bag, pulling out the necklace Alexander gave her for the second task. “I've got it, I’ve got it!”

Putting it on, her form shifted into the image of a blonde half-elf.

“That’s perfect,” Melina encouraged.

Icarus took some clothes out of the wardrobe, using what he could to bind his fins to his legs and arms. It felt horrible, but his fear of what might be happening to Damen spurred him on.

Pandora watched him grimace as he pulled the wrappings around. “You okay buddy?”

“Yeah. Fine.” He covered his ears with his hair, tying it behind his head before pulling out a cloak and tunic. The outfit was rich and fine, nothing like his usual style.

Mayes grabbed an outfit, loosing their hair and trying to make it a bit neater to match the richness of the outfit. With the disguise kit, they painted a surprisingly convincing beard of their face, complete with a bit of chest hair. As they turned back around from the mirror, the others startled for a moment before they recognized the face.

“Hey,” Mayes grinned.

Pandora looked them up and down, impressed. “That’s really good.”

“That suits you,” Icarus grinned.

Mayes raised a brow. “Thanks?”

“You’re welcome.”

Melina took out a cloak, throwing it over her head to disguise herself.

Pandora took a steadying breath. “Okay. What’s the quickest, most inconspicuous way to Helena’s?”

Icarus explained the general location of Helena’s house to Melina. She looked blindly to the ceiling in thought. “I don’t think I can get us there in the underground tunnels, but I can certainly direct us back towards the center, and then you can navigate from there.”

“How far away from the center?”

“Maybe a fifteen minute walk.”

“Okay.”

“That’s great,” Mayes agreed.

Icarus smiled at her. “Perfect. At least with that hood up, you don’t need to wear that blindfold now. Just keep your eyes down. Okay, we’re just… two gentlemen and two ladies going on a nighttime stroll.”

“Confidence.”

Melina held out a hand. “Would you care to take my arm?”

Icarus linked arms with her. “Of course.”

Mayes and Pandora did the same. They made their way out of Kondou’s estate through the main exit down the path, unlatching the gate to head out into the street. Once they were out, they felt the tension immediately rise as the weight of Orion’s message settled.

Melina directed them back towards the center. As they walked through the next few streets, they spotted several members of the city guard. They turned and ducked past them, but as they came to one of the main streets through the city, they saw a blockade stopping carts and carriages. Moving closer, they stepped into a side alley to eavesdrop. A guard was asking a hooded carriage if they could check inside for people they were searching for. A few regular civilians walked past, being checked over by guards as well.

“I don’t think we can go this way,” Mayes whispered. “They’re stopping people.”

“We’ll stick to the back streets,” Icarus decided. “Confidence.”

“Confidence.”

“Confidence,” Melina echoed.

“Let’s keep going,” Icarus urged. “From here we can definitely direct. We just head down this road, and we’ll be fine.”

The three of them were familiar enough with the streets that they were able to recognize the alleyways, casually turning down smaller streets to weave in and out. They kept an eye out behind them, confident they weren’t being followed.

As they approached the center of the city, they heard a large crowd spilling out of the Maw. One of the late night fights had just ended.

“Okay, this is fine,” Icarus whispered. “This is good, this is a crowd.”

“Blend in with the crowd,” Mayes nodded.

“Just stay close.”

“Hold on to each other. Just two couples.”

They made their way toward the crowd. Huge numbers of people were exiting through multiple doors, flooding the lawns in front of it. As they passed, they overheard many people expressing disappointment that Damianos hadn’t shown up for tonight’s performance. They felt cheated out of good money, and no explanation had been given for his absence.

As they melded with the crowd, a herald stepped into the crossroads of the main square, letting out a loud blast of the horn before making their announcement. “The gladiator Damianos Thalasse has been arrested on charges of High Treason! His three cohorts are still at large! Please see bills posted around the city for their appearances, and alert the city guard to any sightings!”

As the group turned to look, they noticed someone posting up multiple posters of their faces along the walls.

Icarus was aware that the sound of his armour moving underneath his cloak was quite distracting, but he was able to keep his face turned down. The people around them were still buzzing from the fights, and didn’t seem to be paying much mind to the faces under the hoods.

As they walked, Icarus put on a posh accent, feigning mild annoyance to blend with the crowd. “It’s rather a shame, isn’t it? That Damen didn’t turn up.”

Melina gave an overly enthusiastic nod, catching on. “Oh, yes! Definitely!”

“Certainly, it’s the reason I booked those tickets for us, darling.”

“We’ll have to come back another day, when there’s another show.”

“I’m sure. Though, if he’s been arrested for high treason… it’s quite exciting, really.”

Pandora was not putting on nearly as much of an act, trying her best not to hyperventilate behind the other couple. Mayes squeezed her a bit closer, breathing heavily and slowly as they walked to encourage her to do the same. “It’s okay. Hey. We got this.”

They continued on, breaking out of the crowd and heading down another, smaller street. Nobody looked as they did, but as they walked down the next street, they saw a number of city guards milling around at the end.

The guards glanced up at them, and Icarus raised a hand in a wave. “Evening.”

“Evening,” one replied, giving a nod. They weren’t paying enough attention to see their faces properly, and let them pass.

“Confidence,” Icarus muttered. “See?”

“Let’s keep going,” Melina urged.

As soon as they were out of the guard’s line of sight, they moved a little faster, turning into another alley as soon as they could. They were only five minutes away now.

Reaching the end of the next road, they saw more detailed sketches of their faces posted around. Hurrying along, they came up to the outside of Helena’s townhouse, a two story building with constellations engraved into the wooden door.

Melina quickly pulled down the blindfold as Mayes knocked on the door. Orion pulled the door open, glancing over them in momentary fear and confusion by the disguises.

“It’s us,” Icarus assured him.

He nodded. “Come in, quickly.”

Pandora dropped her disguise as they stepped in. Orion shut the door, bolting it across.

The living room was dimly lit with the curtains drawn. Helena was sitting on the small couch, while Lord Pešek was standing up and leaning against a wall to the other side. He looked up with relief. “You’re okay!”

“We just got back into town,” Icarus replied.

“This has been going on for the better part of the afternoon.”

“What happened?” Pandora whimpered.

Orion ran his hands through his hair, letting out a long breath. “Okay, I wasn’t sure at first… Damen just came by my place, and he told me that his home had been ransacked this morning when he got back from the Maw. He told me everything, he’s explained everything the three of you have been through.”

Pandora sat down in the space next to Helena. Helena reached out for her hand, squeezing it. “I’m glad that you’re all okay, and that you’re here safe.”

“We need to help Damen,” Icarus declared. “Where is he?”

“We need to get him out,” Pandora agreed.

Mayes put out a hand to interject. “The Sanctor of Erran. Their life is in danger.”

Pešek tilted his head, looking them over. “What?”

Mayes pulled out the paperwork. Pešek took it, and as he read through it, his face morphed from shock into anger. “This is High Councilor Arkud. That’s his position.”

“What?” Pandora gasped. “Okay, they’re going to assassinate the High Councilor!”

“Something has to be done about this.”

“But, what’s this high treason?” Icarus pressed.

“I don’t know. I imagine it’s been a made up charge.”

“Yeah I’d say so, considering we weren’t even in the city for the last two days!”

“They came for him while he was hiding at my place,” Orion continued.

“What did they say?” Pandora asked. “When they came?”

“It was a large group of the city guard. Led by one of the captains of the guard. Um, and they said he had to go with them… that they had men at Panos’s mother’s house. And… they were threatening to hurt her and Panos if he didn’t go with them. So he simply let them take him away.”

“City guard,” Icarus repeated. “That means that he’s probably… he’s in the walls? That’s where they’ve got the prison, right?”

As he spoke, Helena tensed up, squeezing Pandora’s hand tightly.

Pandora looked to her with concern. “Helena? It’s okay, you’re okay!”

Gold swirled across her blind eyes once again, and she let out a gasp. Turning her head, she looked over the three of them as if she was truly seeing, reaching out to touch something invisible in front of her. “I can see them…”

“The what? What is it?”

“The red threads…”

“Red threads?” Mayes prompted.

“Tell us what you’re seeing!” Pandora pleaded.

Helena stood. “I can see them. Moving through the city streets…. across… towards the Southeast Gate… they’re all coming together, I can see them twisting and connecting. Damianos…”

“Where is he?”

“He’s in a cell… it’s on… higher up in the building, maybe the second or third floor… isolated… shackled…”

“Are there guards?”

“Plenty.”

“We have to go get him, then,” Mayes decided.

Pandora swallowed. “Yeah, we need to get him out.”

Helena’s tone grew a bit desperate. “The thread is getting bare again...”

“We need to get him out!”

“You can’t go there.”

“Helena, we need to get him out of there.”

“It’s a trap. They know you’re gonna come for him!”

“They set us up…”

“If you go there, they're gonna kill you. ...No!” she braced, cringing away from something unseen.

Pandora squeezed her hand. “What is it?”

When she opened her eyes again, they had misted back to white. “I saw the blade of the Moirai come down. To sever the strings. You can’t go there.”

Icarus’s voice shook in fear. “Is…? No… Is Damen okay?”

“I think it was a vision of the future. One possible path.”

“We can’t leave him there. We can’t, we can’t!”

“We can’t leave him there,” Pandora agreed. “What… What do we do, what do we do?”

Mayes rubbed their face, exasperated. “We also have a High Councilor to save. When is this dinner?”

Pešek crossed his arms. “Tomorrow night.”

Mayes cringed in irritation as Pandora wiped her eyes. “Of course it is,” she sniffed.

“I can tell you where it is, but I don’t know what else I can do from there.”

“We have proof,” Mayes tried. “We could… we could find Councilor Arkud and… show him?”

“That could work,” Pešek mused. “It’s a start.”

“Get him to call it off, or not go, or something,” Pandora continued. “What is this dinner tomorrow?”

“It’s my celebration inauguration dinner, for the Armiger thing. It will be most of the Council, important members of the nobility in Erran. The Imperata will be there.”

“Melina, you said that you knew a lot of the names of the people who were part of the Typhon Assembly?”

Melina, waiting silently and blindly behind them, lifted her head. “Yes?”

“If you reel off some names, my Lord, would you know if they were attending?”

“Most likely,” he replied.

Icarus stepped forward motioning to Melina. “My Lord Pešek, this is my Lady Melina.”

“...I’ve heard of you.”

“Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not the complete truth,” she returned. “I promise I mean you no harm.”

“She’s an innocent,” Pandora explained.

Pešek looked them over. “You know, at this point, I’m inclined to trust when the three of you say that, so… fine, read off the names.”

Melina listed off the names she could remember, and Pešek confirmed that almost all of them would be in attendance, excluding Alexis. The moment Melina mentioned his name, Icarus dead eyed Pešek. “Alexis is not as involved as his father would like.”

“...Okay?”

“You sure we can trust him?” Pandora worried.

“I would trust him with my life,” Icarus declared.

Pešek nodded. “I will take your word for it.”

“So what do we do?” Mayes continued. “We go to Arkud and just tell him, don’t go? Have an excuse?”

“Or just tell him everything?” Icarus suggested.

Pešek frowned. “I don’t know if  _ don’t go _ will work in this instance. They can track him down anywhere in the city.”

“Maybe we can set a trap. Right?”

“Some way to get Adamos to out himself?” Mayes offered.

“To confess,” Pandora agreed. “Or something…”

Icarus sighed. “If it’s not until tomorrow, I guess we have time to figure this out.”

“But the key thing is to make sure that Arkud survives,” Mayes concluded.

“Yeah.”

“That would be very important,” Pešek replied. “I don’t know what you know about the Sanctor of the city…”

“Not much,” Pandora admitted.

“He has the power, and is the only one with the power, to sign official city state business in relation to other city states. If what you told me before was true, about them trying to start a war, it would require his seal before they could make anything happen. This seal is something… arcane, within the council. And can’t be carried out by anyone except him. Except in… the event of his death, and the position passing on to someone else. I imagine that’s what they’re trying to do.”

“Tell me about the seal?”

“It’s, I suppose, an arcane stamp. Something that the Sanctor makes a connection with. It can be used normally, but it won’t leave any impression. It leaves an arcane trace that can be read by other city states, to prove that it’s real.”

“And this connection between the Sanctor and the stamp, it only ever breaks upon the Sanctor’s death? Is there any other circumstance it will break?”

“That is simply it. The Sanctor is quite a serious position, it lasts until death, and cannot be revoked by anything short of a Wish Spell.”

Pandora blinked, impressed. “Wow… that’s strong.”

“Pretty heavy to sign up for,” Icarus muttered. “Wow, okay...”

“Arkud is a strict man, but serious about his position,” Pešek concluded.

“They’d have Adamos in that until his end,” Mayes realized. “Right in their pocket.”

“A stamp on whatever he feels like.”

“With Leonida to always agree.”

“Melina,” Pešek turned, “Is High Councilor Hammon…? Do you know anything about them being part of the Assembly?”

“I haven’t heard that name in connection, no,” she returned.

“Well, that’s something.”

“Two out of three is still the majority, though,” Mayes worried.

“Enough to pass a new vote.”

Pandora shook her head. “So, the idea is to kill Arkud so that Adamos can make a connection with this stamp? Because, it says on the paper that it will pass to Adamos in the event of the Sanctor’s death.”

“I guess if they’re doing it at the dinner, there’s also witnesses,” Mayes considered. “It won’t look like Adamos was part of it. And if Leonida is already one of the High Councilors, he could be like,  _ oh, I think Adamos could take the position…” _

“Well, it’s here in writing that he would take the position.”

“Yeah.”

“The connection with the stamp… does it automatically pass to the next successor?”

“No,” Pešek explained. “The successor would have to obtain the item, the seal, and spend some time making the connection arcanely.”

Pandora tilted her head in thought. “...We need to make Adamos think that Arkud is dead.” She rifled through her bag, pulling out the potion Veltash gave her. “For all intents and purposes, he’ll just drop dead.”

“And then… we can wake him back up?” Icarus guessed.

“He should wake back up in twenty four hours. I never read Veltash’s notes on it, but I’m guessing…”

“Restoration?”

“A restoration of some sort…”

“It functions as a poison,” Mayes recalled.

“Yeah, just a poison, surely. But he will look like he’s dead.”

Icarus gave a slow nod. “That might lure…”

“Adamos,” Mayes finished. “And, if he drops dead in the middle of dinner, the new Armiger can take him to a temple, see if there’s anything to be done.”

Pešek looked between them. “It makes sense.”

“And then just take him to a safe location?”

“I could do that. And I could restore the body, remove the poison.”

“By which point, Adamos will think that Arkud is dead,” Pandora concluded. “And potentially, try and make a move on the seal.”

“For which you could be waiting.”

“Yes. And, if he tries to connect with it and the poison is dispelled, he won’t be able to connect to it.”

Pešek beamed. “Pandora, this is genius. All three of you, strategically wonderful.”

“We just need it all to play out.”

“And you need Arkud to get on board.”

“Yeah, we need to convince him.”

“We’ve got paperwork,” Mayes offered.

“We’ve got paperwork…”

“Talk to him.”

“But even paperwork can be forged…”

“I can write you a letter,” Pešek suggested.

“That would be helpful.”

“My part in this needs to stay quietly, obviously. I can’t be seen with you. But something to say I’m onboard and that I will protect him. That’s my job now.”

“Maybe if we stay the night here?” Mayes suggested. “First thing in the morning?”

“If that’s okay with Helena,” Pandora interjected.

“Of course,” she smiled.

“You said he’s quite a strict, on the job guy?” Mayes checked.

“As far as I know,” Pešek nodded. “Yes.”

“It would reason that he’d maybe be at the office first thing?”

“We’ve got our disguises,” Icarus assured them. “We can get there first thing, keep an eye out.”

Pandora rubbed her face again. “Would they really suspect three wanted people to go walking into a council building?”

“Straight into the lion’s den.”

“You know what,” Pešek thought, “I will send word to him first thing in the morning that I want to meet in his office, to make sure that he’s there for you.”

“Thank you.”

Icarus took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay… okay. Everything will work out. I know it will.”

“We can find out a way to get eyes on the dinner,” Mayes added.

“Yeah.”

“Guys,” Pandora gulped, fidgeting anxiously on the couch. “Guys, I’m really worried about my sister.”

“Can you send her a message?” Icarus suggested.

“Probably not safe,” Pešek warned. “If she’s in any sort of danger, we will help her.”

“We warned Roys the other day,” Mayes told her. “That something was up.”

Pandora glanced up with relief. “Did you?”

“At the party,” Icarus explained.

“So hopefully he’s told her,” Mayes finished. “Hopefully they’ll be safe.”

“They’re smart people, okay?” Icarus assured Pandora. “Let’s focus on us first, keeping us safe. Yeah?”

As the three of them strategized, Orion grew very quiet. He was sitting down with a hand over his mouth, looking away. ‘“This is great.”

Pandora glanced back over, nearly at a breaking point. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“How are we gonna get Damen out?”

There was a beat of silence before Icarus set his jaw. “I’m getting him out of there, okay?”

“We’re not leaving him there,” Pandora agreed.

Mayes nodded. “We deal with Adamos, clear our names…”

“And we can clear Damen’s.”

“Easy.”

Orion shook his head. “I’ve already called for help from the Brotherhood. I was hoping when I contacted you, that the four of us would be able to go and break him out. I wasn’t even thinking about clearing names, I was just thinking…”

“Out,” Icarus finished.

Orion looked quite shaken. He moved near Pandora, and she held him tightly as Pešek began to speak again. “We’d spoken earlier, when Orion contacted me and let me know. I think it’s probably for the best if I immediately get Damianos out of the city. And so, the Brotherhood are on their way. I expect they’ll probably be here a little earlier than this tomorrow night. You simply have to get him to them.”

“We can do that,” Mayes agreed.

“That’s a last resort, though,” Pandora amended. “Because, hopefully, by doing this, we can clear our names.”

“Yes,” Pešek nodded. “That is a much better solution, if you can.”

Icarus stepped over to Orion, offering a hand out to him. As he took it, Icarus stared him in the eye. “He will not stay in that cell. If I’ve got anything, if it’s my last breath, I am getting him out of there. I promise you.”

Orion gave a small smile, nodding. “Just let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“We will.”

Silence fell in the room as they all took a breath. Mayes put their hand out towards Icarus and Pandora, and the others added their hands to the pile. “Ventus Fortunae.”

Icarus smiled. “Yeah, Ventus Fortunae.”

“Ventus Fortunae,” Pandora echoed.

Mayes squeezed the hands, and then released them. “Fortune is on our side.”

“It was you who came up with that, wasn’t it, sir?” Pandora looked to Pešek.

“It was,” he replied.

“Any reason?”

“...I see a lot of potential in the three of you. I know your stories about the fates, and I thought… winds will be pushing you ever onwards. And that you’re going to do great things. I can’t say I was expecting this to be the start of it, but, all great things start at the bottom of a hill. And then you climb the mountain.”

“And climb we’re going to,” Icarus declared.

“And Damen’s coming with us,” Pandora added.

“Yeah. Even if we have to drag him.”

“We probably will,” Mayes chuckled.

Orion leaned back in his seat. “Even if I have to kick his ass…”

“Please do.”

Icarus looked around the room. “We’ll be fine. All of us.”

“Good,” Pešek grinned. “You better be. I’ve come to care somewhat for the three of you, and I don’t want to see anything happen to you.”

“We owe you a lot, sir,” Pandora sniffed. “We owe you so much.”

Mayes gave him a very respectful bow, and Pešek instantly waved his hand. “Oh, none of that nonsense. No person is above any other person, please.”

Icarus smiled. “I have great respect for you, Pešek.”

“And I do for you. You should get some rest, it’s late.”

“Early morning start,” Mayes sighed.

“And as for you, my Lady Melina, we will sort out somewhere to keep you safe.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “That means the world.”

Icarus looked back to Pešek. “Kondou is no longer a threat.”

Pešek gave an impressed nod. “I’m very glad to hear that.”

“He’s no longer a person,” Melina added.

Pandora shook her head. “He never was in the first place.”

“Melina can stay here for the time being,” Helena offered. “I feel like it would be a safe place. Nobody bothers me here.”

Melina turned her blindfolded face in the direction of the voice. “Are you sure? Even a sidelong glance wrong, and I could turn you to stone.”

Helena laughed slightly. “You can’t see me right now, but I don’t think that’s possible. Please, you can head upstairs. I have a guest room. Get some rest, you have a city to save.”

The three of them headed upstairs, climbing the stairs to the small upper floor of the townhouse. Icarus unwrapped the binds from his arms and legs, feeling an instant relief.

Opening the door, they saw that the guest room only had one bed. Each of them were secretly grateful as they piled in, sandwiching Pandora in the middle as they held onto each other. Mayes wiped the beard off, and Pandora cleaned up the spots they missed under their chin. The three of them pulled the thick, heavy feather covers over themselves as they held onto each other, the great weight of what they had to do tomorrow settling in.

But, they had each other, and they were emboldened by that. They made a great team, and they had people downstairs who believed in them.

From sheer exhaustion, they fell into a restful sleep.

  
  


In the early morning, a knock on the door woke them. “Rise and shine!” Orion’s voice called through. “Time to save the world!”

Pandora groaned. “Can’t it wait?”

Orion laughed. “What was it Malachi called you? Junior Heros? Baby Heros?”

“Don’t!”

“No, we’re Ventus Fortunae now,” Mayes countered. “We have a big boy name.”

Orion laughed. “There’s breakfast, come and get it before you have to head out into the world.”

“Will do,” Icarus stretched. He slipped out of bed, frowning at his noisy chainmail for a moment.

“Do you want me to put it in the bag?” Pandora offered. “Then I can just pull it out for you if you need it.”

“Yes, that’d be good,” he agreed. “Thank you.”

They got up and dressed, treating themselves to a hearty breakfast of everything Helena had left in the cupboards. She had quite a deft hand at cooking.

There was a knock on the door, and Orion went to answer it. He peered around slowly as the trio of students hid from sight, but Orion soon sighed in relief. “Lord Pešek, come in.”

Roman slipped back inside. “Please, you can drop the  _ Lord. _ I have a carriage to take you most of the way, and I’ve paid a hefty sum off to the driver, so… you don’t exist.”

“We’ve never been happier to not exist,” Icarus chuckled. “Thank you.”

“I’ve always wanted to not exist,” Pandora teased.

“Okay, I suppose it’s about time then.”

“Arkud is assured to be going to his office at the council building,” Pešek explained. “I can’t promise that any of the others won’t be there.”

“Okay,” Pandora nodded. “I don’t know if any of you really spoke to him while the Lords of Vishima were here, but I didn’t really… is there anything you could tell us about him? What kind of a man he is, what he’d respond well to?”

“He is… really something. Stuck up, serious. No sense of humor.”

“Great.”

“It’s no laughing matter,” Icarus shrugged. “So I suppose that’s okay.”

“But, like I said, we’ve got documentation,” Mayes repeated. “Hopefully that appeals to that sort of man.”

“I think I would say, responds well to people being straightforward,” Pešek concluded. “Not mincing their words, or spending too long explaining things.”

“Okay. Councilor Arkud, your life is in danger.”

“Tell him that. Give him the evidence, and the letter from me, and then tell him your plan.”

Icarus picked up the bandages, beginning to wrap his arms and legs again as Pandora put the necklace on. Mayes reached into their bag, pulling out the belt buckle of Pelor Icarus had gifted them and adding it to their outfit for good luck.

“So the building for the dinner tonight,” Pešek began. “It’s directly across the small courtyard where the council building is. It’s the one with the red banners.”

“I remember it, from when we showed the Lords around,” Pandora nodded. “What time does it start? And how long is it supposed to last?”

“It will start around seven, and I expect it will go on way late into the night.”

“Is there a particular time you’re serving food?”

“I expect, around eight.”

“Okay. Are we ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Icarus shrugged.

Mayes gave a nod. “Go team.”

Pandora looked back to Pešek. “Thank you sir.”

“Thank you for everything,” Icarus echoed.

Pešek smiled. “I will see you on the other side.”

The three of them said their goodbyes to Helena and Melina, receiving a big hug from Orion.

“See you when we bust Damen out,” Mayes promised.

“Yeah,” he smiled. “Tonight.”

“WIll you be there tonight?” Pandora asked.

“I will be there. If I have to fly up to the top of the walls, I will be there.”

“Any information, any anything, you know how to contact us,” Icarus returned. “See you soon.”

“See you soon.”

Pešek showed them to the door. “The Winds of Fortune will be in your favor.”

The hooded carriage was pulled right up to the door, making them impossible to see from the street as they stepped inside. Before he had even closed the door, the carriage began to swiftly pull away.

Pandora took a deep breath. “Okay. How are we doing this?”

“Just like Roman said,” Mayes replied. “We just tell him what’s happening, present our evidence, and you can describe the plan.”

“I mean, moreso, how are we getting in?”

“Walking,” Icarus declared.

“Just walking straight through the front doors?”

“Oh yeah,” Mayes nodded.

“You’ve picked those locks before,” Icarus glanced to Mayes, “If we need to pick it again, you’ll be able to do it, right?”

“Yeah. I mean, I hate to say it, but if we have to corner him in his office just so he can’t run away from the conversation… we’re trying to save a man’s life here.”

  
  


The carriage trundled across the city. It wasn’t too far to the council buildings, and before long, it was pulling into an alleyway off the main road. As they stopped, the driver gave a knock on the outside of the carriage, and the trio let themselves out. The carriage immediately carried on through the alleyway and onto the main road.

They quickly began walking towards the council building, fast and quiet. It was only 7:30, but there were still a fair few people about walking with purpose towards their jobs. As they neared the end of the street, Mayes suddenly put their arms out to pull the others back as a troop of city guards marched past. One of them glanced into the alleyway, but paid them no mind as they ducked their heads.

The trio strolled out towards the bouleuterion. Once again, they approached the large and impressive rectangular building with white and blue columns, now with hanging purple banners celebrating the new Armiger. They walked directly up to the entrance, past the carved figures of previous High Councilors that lined the corridor leading into the antechamber. No one paid them any mind. A few aides walked past them, nodding good morning, but didn’t make eye contact. They passed right by, seemingly busy with their scrolls and conversation.

They headed past the stretch of fountain and plant life, sunlight streaming down from above as the cool air brushed past their skin. Moving straight up to Arkud’s office, Mayes motioned for the others to block them as they peeked through the keyhole. The office was empty, but as they gave the handle a twist, they found it locked.

Icarus and Pandora stood in front of Mayes, feigning a casual conversation as Mayes worked. They swiftly flicked out their trap tools, and with three clicks, they were in. The three of them pushed the door open, sliding inside the room and shutting the door behind them before twisting the lock.

Icarus let out a long sigh. “Okay. Now I feel like I can breathe a little bit.”

“Do we want to be just stood here waiting for him?” Pandora asked. “Or do we want to hide, and wait until he’s come in and sat down?”

“Flush to the wall, so we can block his exit.”

As they waited, Icarus checked over Arkud’s desk. Various pieces of paperwork were scattered across it, and he checked a couple of drawers, but didn’t find anything that looked Typhon related. However, sitting plainly on the desk was the seal of the city that Pešek had mentioned. It was about the size of the palm of a hand, with a painted black handle. On the bottom was an official engraved symbol for Erran. Icarus tested it, pushing it down slightly, but it left no stamp. A thrum of arcane energy resonated from it, but Icarus could feel that he wouldn’t be able to connect with it. “This is cool.”

Pandora looked over his shoulder. “Wow.”

“Yeah, right? Probably shouldn’t play with it, though.”

“Probably not.”

“I mean, it’s of no use to anyone but Arkud,” Mayes shrugged.

“That thing is giving off a really stubborn aura.”

“That’s probably why he leaves it out with such confidence.”

“Yeah, if someone stole it, they couldn’t use it.”

“Okay, let’s be quiet and wait.”

They flushed themselves to the wall by the door. There were no cupboards or curtains with which to hide, but they were able to stand just behind where the door would swing inwards. They waited for another ten minutes, tensions high, feeling like it must have been an hour before they heard a key in the lock.

The door opened. Councilor Arkud, a hobgoblin man they recognized from their time with the Lords of Vishima, walked in looking down at some papers in his hand. He kicked the door shut behind him, oblivious to the people in the room as he strolled through the office towards his desk.

Icarus slid in front of the door, locking it. As he did, Arkud turned at the noise. Shock took over his face. “You three…!”

Mayes put out a hand. “Councilor Arkud, your life is in danger.”

“We are here to save you,” Icarus explained.

Mayes pulled out Pešek’s note and the Typhon letter, offering them out. Arkud was momentarily stunned into silence before he tentatively reached out, taking the papers. Icarus lifted his hands peacefully, and the others followed.

“We’re not here to hurt you, I promise you,” Icarus continued.

Papers in hand, Arkud moved behind his desk, sitting in his chair to unroll the scrolls. He looked them both over twice. “Where did you get this?”

“The house of Angelos Kondou,” Mayes replied.

Arkud sighed, thinking it over. “Thank you, I suppose, for the warning.”

“We have a plan to keep you alive,” Icarus replied.

“And trap Adamos, at the same time,” Pandora added.

“And clear our names, and Damianos.”

Arkud folded his hands on the desk. “I’m willing to hear you out.”

Pandora rooted in her bag, pulling out the Potion of Living Death. “Our idea is to make Adamos think that you are dead.”

“Okay?”

“Before they have the chance to kill you,” Mayes clarified.

“It might mess with their plans,” Pandora shrugged, “But it’s still ultimately their goal. So it will still work out for them. Or at least, that’s what they will think.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Arkud prompted.

“This potion is a potion of feigned death, and it works on a delay. So you take it, it doesn’t work for eight hours, and then you are… essentially, to any medical examination or to the eye, you are dead.”

“You drop dead in the middle of dinner,” Mayes explained. “The new Armiger whisks you away to see if anything can be done.”

“Revives you,” Icarus added. “This can be immediately reversed, it’s not a permanent thing, it’s just…”

“A visage of death,” Pandora finished.

Mayes gave a serious nod. “Adamos and these other Assembly members think their plan has worked, if not in the way they expected.”

“And supposedly, if the Sanctor is dead, the connection with the seal of the city will pass on to Adamos. He will come and try to use it.”

“He will have to come and try to use it,” Arkud echoed, thinking. “He will need an hour with it before he can get it to work.”

“Good for us, I suppose.”

“And in that time, it’s a perfect time to trap him in it,” Icarus concluded.

“And it won’t even work if you’re not really dead,” Mayes guessed. “Right?”

“Correct,” Arkud replied. “I see you have a fairly solid plan.”

“We do,” Icarus returned. “And this, the beast that’s been mentioned?”

“The one that killed Castor,” Pandora grumbled.

“Exactly. So, two birds one stone.”

“We’ve already disposed of it’s master, Kondou,” Mayes added.

Arkud appraised them for a moment. “Okay. I believe you, and I’m willing to listen.”

Pandora bowed her head slightly. “Thank you sir.”

“I don’t take matters like this lightly. And, seeing as you have our new Armiger seemingly on your side, I will accept this. What do you need me to do?”

Pandora put the potion on his desk. “You take this eight hours before you want the effects to start working. So, if you were to drop dead during the dinner portion of the evening, that is… what, 8:00? 8:30? So, I’d say take this around midday.”

“And it’ll definitely work?”

“I promise you.”

“...Okay. I agree.”

“Thank you sir.”

“And, if you are in any way lying to me, I will have your heads on my wall.”

“Understandable,” Icarus nodded.

“With all due respect sir,” Pandora continued, “If we were guilty of the crimes we have been accused of, we wouldn’t be standing in front of you here now. We wouldn’t be risking that much.”

Arkud looked her over. “I would say that’s a fair suggestion. I would also suggest that you get the hell out of here.”

“We don’t plan on sticking around,” Icarus replied.

“Okay. Take it in four hour’s time.”

“Thank you for trusting us.”

“You have left me little choice.”

“This city needs you to live,” Mayes returned.

“That would be preferable.”

Icarus bowed his head as Arkud stood to unlock the door. He stuck out his head, checking the hall. “Go now. Quickly. Begone, and hopefully I will never see you again.”

Icarus gave a final nod. “We can only hope, sir.”

He let them out of the office, closing the door behind them. The antechamber was thankfully empty, and they were able to quickly make their way back down to exit through the square outside.

“We should go lay low somewhere,” Pandora advised.

“Yeah, definitely,” Icarus replied.

Businesses and high class tavernas frequented by council members surrounded the area, but they were only a district or two off from the dodgier area of the city.

“No one will suspect anyone to be at Damen’s house,” Pandora suggested.

“And they’ve already searched there,” Icarus considered. “Right?”

“And he’s locked up, why would anyone be there? We can go and check it out, if it’s under guard or anything we’ll leave, but…”

Mayes nodded. “If not, maybe find an abandoned building or something.”

“Okay,” Icarus hurried them along. “Let’s try that.”

“Plan of action.”

They made their way back to the far western side of Erran down near the sea gates, heading down Damianos’s street. As usual, there were no guards about. They made their way to the apartment building, but the lock was already busted.

Pandora frowned at the sight. “Orion said that they ransacked his place.”

They moved inside, closing the door and doing their best to bolt it from the inside. The place had been completely turned over, with furniture knocked down and his kitara broken on the floor. His armour from the Maw, kept nicely displayed on one wall, was thrown on the ground. Papers were torn up and thrown across the floor.

Icarus picked up the armour, handing it to Pandora to load it into the Bag of Holding. Mayes searched around for anything of personal value, trying to pack what they could into the bag. They found a few pieces of artwork and keepsakes, most of them drawn by various children, along with a small hand carved statuette of Damen. Opening another drawer, Mayes found three wrapped packages with their names on them.

Mayes passed over the various knick knacks for Pandora to pack away, and gathered them around the drawer with the Solstice gifts. They unwrapped various handworked leather items, carved with intricate scenes and images. Mayes unwrapped a sheath for a dagger, adorned with images of trees and people from Vishima drawn very delicately into the leather. Pandora pulled out a component pouch for her belt, depicting a scene of mountains, ocean, and a sky above filled with stars. For Icarus, Damen had crafted a leather bracelet with the waves, the horizon line, and a full galleon.

Pandora wiped her eyes. “God dammit Damen.”

“Well, we’ve just got to make sure that we can get him out to get him his,” Icarus assured her.

“Yeah.”

“Stupid idiot,” Mayes pulled out their dagger, fitting it into the sheath and attaching it to the back of their belt.

Damen’s leatherworking tools were scattered around the small space. The three of them spent some time gathering up Damen’s belongings and packing them into the bag. Eventually, Pandora reached into the bag herself, searching for the wizard hat. Instead, she felt something small, cold, and metal at the bottom. “What is this…?”

She pulled it out to find a handful of pretty brass rings. They didn’t seem arcane, likely swiped from a simple jewelry store counter. “Oh! These are nice.”

She put several on each finger, and then tried again for the hat. This time, she managed to pull it out and put it on. Her horns fit perfectly through the holes.

“I think it suits you,” Icarus grinned.

“It’s cute,” Mayes agreed.

“Thanks,” Pandora replied. “Haven’t tried it before. Let’s see what it does.”

She picked up the kitara, thinking hard on the mending spell she had heard of, but never had the chance to learn. Through the hat, she found herself fueled with the arcane power that would come with being well practiced in the spell. In a moment, the kitara fused back together. She looked down at it a moment, considering. “Huh. That’s fun.”

Icarus laughed. “You’re just so cool. Everyday.”

“Everyday, Pandora is cool,” Mayes grinned.

Pandora put the hat back into the bag and began tidying the house. The three of them cleared up the broken glass and trash, and it didn’t take long to clear the small space.

As they took the time to rest and wait for the dinner, Icarus sat with the great sword he took from Kondou’s house, looking it over.

“It suits you,” Pandora observed.

“You think?”

“Yeah, I mean, that thing is bigger than I am.”

“You could always pull it out if you want to use the big guns,” Mayes suggested.

They spend their rest identifying the various items they had collected over the past few days. Pandora informed them that the Potion of Tongues would allow the drinker the ability to understand any spoken language for one hour. “That would be useful to have.”

“Either of you want to have that in particular?” Icarus offered. “I can do that spell sometimes.”

Mayes reached for it. “I’m thinking, if I had to overheard a conversation…”

“Yeah, that’s a pretty good idea for you,” Pandora agreed.

“You’re the sneaky one,” Icarus chuckled.

Pandora took out the next item, identifying the magical oil as a tool that could be applied to a weapon, blessing it and enhancing its abilities for an hour. The health potion had the ability to cure moderate wounds. The final item was Medea’s claw ring. It was a very unique item, used to prepare to summon either an object or creature. After it was prepared, anyone could use the summon at any time.

“This is a bit advanced,” Pandora frowned. “I don’t think either of us can use it yet.”

“No, but this is good to have,” Mayes replied.

“Definitely good to hold onto,” Icarus agreed.

Pandora gave the ring back to Mayes. “I mean, someone else who is a higher level spellcaster, or a more advanced spellcaster than Icarus and I, they could do it.”

“For the time being, if I am ever de-weaponed,” Mayes grinned, slipping it on their finger, “I can just scratch their eyes out.”

Pandora smiled. “Okay, we should come up with a plan.”

“Do we want to get eyes on dinner somehow? Just so we can make sure? I trust Roman, but…”

“Just to see what goes down.”

“Could you send in your little bird?” Icarus suggested.

“Yeah, that would be safer than us masquerading as staff or something.”

“I don’t really want to go in there when there’s pictures of our faces all over the city.”

“I hate that, I really hate that.”

“We could… If we find somewhere outside the building to hide,” Mayes strategized, “Icarus, if you guard Pandora while she’s fogged over, I can just stay quiet patrolling.”

“Do you want to use my necklace?” Pandora offered. “You would need to get to know it…”

“I can just make myself up a bit. I’m quiet, so.”

They waited for a few more hours at Damen’s house, resting before the evening. Mayes spent a while with the disguise kit, transforming their face into a completely different person. Icarus focused his energy, sending out an impressive wave of assistive magic through himself and his allies before passing the healing potion over to Pandora. “Take this. I don’t want us to get into a fight, but I would prefer us to be prepared.”

“And I also had to use one of your bigger healing potions when you went down the other day,” Mayes added.

Pandora took the potion. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“That’s okay. It made sense, you hit the hardest.”

“Yeah,” Icarus chuckled. “You really do.”

“Pandora surrounded me in fire, and it was awesome.”

“Pandora is so cool.”

She rolled her eyes. “Guys…”

  
  


Shortly before the dinner started, they headed back towards the council buildings. Icarus was the most recognizable of them, but the other two managed to hide him from view.

Icarus wrapped his arms around himself, trying to quiet the sound of his chainmail. “This armour is louder than the last one, I swear…”

They snuck into the council district, ambling through the alleyways as they searched for a place to hide.

“I think, if we go down one of the back alleys…” Icarus glanced back to Pandora. “You trust me, don’t you?”

She gave him a curious look. “Depends what you’re going to say.”

He chuckled. “I will… I’m gonna be shielding you, I'm gonna have a hood up… I’m gonna be leaning on you, as though we were making out. No one is gonna bother us.”

Pandora pursued her lips, thinking. “I suppose not…”

“And you won’t even have to see it,” Mayes teased.

“I’ll feel it!”

“I’m not gonna actually kiss you,” Icarus promised.

“No, but like… You’d be all up on me!”

“I don’t have to, it was just a suggestion.”

Pandora sighed. “No, it makes sense…”

“I’ll just patrol around,” Mayes continued. “And if anyone comes our way I’ll either warn you or pretend that I’m dealing with you.”

“Okay. Yeah, yeah let’s do it.”

The pair of them slipped down the alleyway. The tall, handsome triton pushed Pandora against the wall. She could feel the ripples of his hard muscles under his armour, but it was rather strange knowing it was Icarus.

“Come on, Icarus,” Mayes called from behind. “Let her get into Puck first.”

As Icarus retreated, Pandora summoned Puck into her hands. “Hey buddy. This might be the most important thing I’ve ever asked you to do, okay?”

The bird twittered excitedly.

“I know, I know, it’s a big day for you… So, listen. What I want you to do is, I need you to go in there, and I need you to spy on Adamos particularly, and Arkud. You remember him, from when the Lords were here?”

Puck gave an affirmative chirp.

“Yeah? Mhm? And then, just keep an eye out. Show me everything that happens. And keep yourself safe and hidden, okay? I love you.”

Puck fluttered happily in her hands.

“And keep an eye out for the Beast,” Icarus added.

“Oh, and keep an eye out for the Beast!”

The bird shuffled a bit, giving a worried whistle.

“I know. Don’t be scared. Okay, I love you.”

The bird, looking brave, gave a determined nod before flying off. As Pandora’s vision went with him, Icarus leaned his arm against the wall, tucking in his head as if kissing her neck.

Mayes began walking through the alleys, patrolling the area as guests began to arrive. Streams of people entered the building, including General Vassallou, Professor Zyki, and a few different councilors. Brutus, Leonida, Adamos, Arkud, and Hammon filed in. Armiger Pešek, now dressed in ceremonial armour, made his entrance. Mayes ducked back behind the wall as the Imperata and her aide arrived, escorted by a flood of guards.

Many other important faces came through. In the crowd, Mayes noticed a nobleman with sunkissed skin and hazel eyes, dirty blonde hair worn slicked back, wearing a purple tunic and cloak. Suddenly, Mayes recognized him from the Maw. The nobleman had been sitting with Leonida, Arkud, Adamos, and Hammon before the chimera fight.

Mayes was sure to watch Adamos enter, but his face didn’t betray any hints of nervousness or anxiousness. Persephone walked with him as his aide, along with many other aides accompanying their councilors. Mayes turned back down the alley, giving Icarus a confident nod before leaving to patrol.

Puck flew up and into the arches at the top of the building that allowed the air to circulate. Inside, the space was beautifully decorated with mosaic floors, plants, statues, fountains, and everything Pandora expected to encounter from the high class of Erran. Puck flew in and hovered above the gathering crowd. There were multiple long tables with kline couches on either side of them for people to lie down as they dined, relaxing and having conversation at their leisure. It was somewhat of an informal party for the nobility and the elite of the city.

The space filled quite quickly with nearly a hundred guests. The Imperata had a table to herself, her aide standing behind her. She was surrounded by guards like a figurehead or a centerpiece of art.

Pandora did her best to watch over Arkud, Adamos, and other members of the Assembly. In the alleyway, Icarus continually sent more of his assistive magic her way, waiting for a report.

Over the first half hour of the evening, Pandora noticed that Adamos sat with Leonida on one side, who was sitting by General Vassallou. On the other side of Adamos was the blonde haired nobleman. The pair of them engaged in separate, quiet conversation. Other members of the Assembly were scattered around the room from all walks of high society in Erran, though no one seemed to be discussing anything of particular interest. There was drab conversation, and small talk about wives, children, and graduating Delphos students.

Arkud was down at the far end of a different table, away from Adamos and Leonida. Pandora noticed that Adamos did glance over to Arkud a few times, but thankfully, Arkud was sitting with Roman.

“Arkud is with Pešek,” Pandora whispered, reporting to Icarus in the alleyway.

He gave her two squeezes in return.

Adamos glanced down at Arkud again. Instead, Pešek caught his eye, and gave a friendly smile. Adamos grunted, looking away.

All of the aides were standing back by the walls, including Persephone. She was waiting dutifully, hands behind her back. Pandora tried to get Puck closer, and the bird managed to slip a few feet lower towards the floor, but there weren’t many places to hide, especially with Persephone watching.

Instead, Pandora sent Puck to slip under one of the tables. As someone got up from a couch, the bird quickly gilded under until he was parked beneath Adamos and the blonde nobleman. She eavesdropped through Puck on mindless drivel for ages, worrying there was nothing more to hear until Leonida stood from the table and Vassallou leaned over to Adamos, speaking in a low whisper impossible to hear.

A moment later, Pandora heard Adamos reply. “No, the plan is simply to get rid of the Beast afterwards. Whether that means we see him arrested, or we let the Armiger do away with him, as is his job. I won’t stop him if he wants to.”

Hearing this, Pandora reported back to Icarus. “They plan to get rid of the Beast afterwards.”

Icarus gave her another two squeezes in confirmation. In the alleys, Mayes continued to patrol. A few guards standing by the front were beginning to get bored, stretching out and moving down the front steps to patrol the entrance instead.

The dinner continued. It was nearly eight by now. Pandora tried to navigate Puck through the forest of legs under the table, heading farther away from Persephone and back down to Arkud and Pešek. As Puck left the table, a few people did notice and brush him off in surprise, but a bird wasn’t too uncommon in a building with an open roof. Puck flew back up and into the ceiling, looking down at the dinner.

Suddenly, Arkud began to choke.

“I think it’s happening,” Pandora reported, receiving another double squeeze from Icarus.

Pešek reached for Arkud, rubbing his back as other people turned, concerned. Finally, Arkud collapsed on the table as though dead. The Armiger got up and checked him over.

The room went silent, with several people standing from their chairs. Roman checked the body over before looking up, meeting the eye of Leonida, and shaking his head.

At that, the room launched into uproar. Guards moved to check the exits, frantically searching for foul play. Adamos stood up quietly, backing towards the wall. There was confusion on his face, and he looked up to the arches on the ceiling. For a second, Pandora worried she had been caught, but then Puck turned to see the glinting eyes and crouched form of something humanoid and bestial in one of the decorative archways.

“It’s there!” Pandora whispered. “It’s there!”

It bounded away quickly, disappearing towards the roof.

“It was there, the Beast is there!”

Icarus gave her another two squeezes in response.

Pandora looked back down through Puck’s eyes. Several guards rushed over towards Arkud with Leonida. Roman checked the body again, and though Pandora couldn’t hear what they were saying, she could judge from the expressions on the crowd that Pešek had pronounced him dead. Stepping away from the body, Pešek began to bark orders, instructing the guards and guests to move. His voice boomed out through the hall with magic as he spoke.

The Lord with the blonde hair looked down the room before sneering and turning on his heel, heading out through the exit at the other end.

“We might have company,” Pandora warned.

Icarus gave her another two squeezes as they waited.

Adamous had backed up to the wall. Persephone stood next to him, a hand diligently on a dagger at her side. The room was on high alert, and she seemed prepared to protect him.

As Mayes went down the alleyway to make sure no one walked by while the crowd parted for the body, Icarus heard footsteps from the other end of the street. The man with blonde hair came marching through. Pulling a hood up, there was a sudden swirl of dark before he was gone, as though teleported.

“Pešek is leaving with Arkud,” Pandora reported. “Do we pull out? Adamos is still in there.”

Icarus gave her a single squeeze for no, and Pandora continued to spy. People filed out as bodyguards led people into the street. The Imperata was flanked with guards on all sides, forcing the crowd to part as she left. When the room was nearly empty, Adamos nodded to Persephone, and they headed towards the door.

“Admos is leaving,” Pandora reported.

Icarus gave her a shake, and Pandora came back to herself as Puck disappeared. “Should we go join the crowd?” Icarus suggested.

“Yup.”

The pair of them headed over to Mayes, slipping in with the crowd. Mayes nodded in recognition. “We good?”

“It mostly went off without a hitch, I think.”

“Amazing.”

“Great,” Icarus agreed. “Let’s try and get eyes on Adamos and follow him.”

“Figure out where he’s going.”

They headed to the end of the alleyway where people were pouring out onto the street. The crowd filled the square, but nobody was stopping. City guards moved through, beginning their investigation. Adamos, with Persephone in tow, crossed towards the  bouleuterion before heading inside.

Pandora gestured to them. “Are we going in?”

“Yeah,” Icarus nodded. “I gotta say, by the way, just before you came out… there was a guy that came out, blonde guy. He pulled up a hood and then disappeared. Like, he teleported away.”

“Tan skin, slicked hair?”

“From the Maw,” Mayes confirmed.

“Adamos was talking to him all evening.”

“Do you remember at the Maw, we saw Leonida and Hammon talking to a human?”

“A noble guy.”

“Right. Same guy. I don’t know if it’s just a weird coincidence, but if you saw him come out of the back and cast a teleportation spell, that’s weird.”

“Kind of fishy,” Pandora agreed.

Icarus shook his head. “To be honest, I don’t feel like anything is a coincidence anymore. But let’s carry on.”

“Yeah, that’s for later.”

“Let’s just get into the building and see what’s what,” Mayes urged.

It was easy to push their way through the large, panicked crowd, and they quickly slipped through to the other side. They peeked in down the end of the inside corridor that led to the antechamber, where Persephone and Adamos headed in with purpose.

“Keep going, we just have to find out where they’re going,” Icarus urged. “Catch him in the act?”

“Listen in on them first,” Mayes advised. “And then corner them. Well, him. And see if we can get Persephone out.”

They slipped through the council building, past the blue and white columns, and past the carved figures of previous High Councilors that almost seemed to be mocking them now. They reached the end of the corridor, flattening themselves against a wall.

They overheard Persephone cast a loud knocking spell on the door. With a bang, the lock flew easily open. The two of them headed inside, and closed the door behind.

“Let’s go to the door,” Icarus whispered.

Pandora and Mayes put their ears up against the wall, listening in. Icarus kept watch, and heard someone moving in one of the spare offices across the hall where he had seen Roys working before. Through the door, Mayes heard a sound of frustration from Adamos.

“It’s not working yet,” he grumbled. “Do you think it needs to be longer? Do you think bloody Pešek is doing something?”

“Maybe something else is going on here,” Persephone replied. “We need to do something about this quickly, Adamos! If it’s not working, that must mean that he’s still alive.”

Mayes looked to Pandora, and shook their head.

Pandora was silent.

Icarus watched the other office door open. Roys stepped out, and Icarus called out his name. He turned, looking at the three of them completely startled. Icarus put a finger over his mouth, hushing him. Roys froze and nodded.

There was another sound of movement in Arkud’s office. Mayes and Pandora backed up from the door as it opened, and Adamos and Persephone stepped out.

Adamos looked at them immediately, glancing across the courtyard to Roys, and then Persephone. “What is this? What are you doing here?”

Mayes met his eye. “We’re here to bring you to justice,” they declared.

“...Really? Last I heard, you were the ones who were wanted.”

“Came to cross the road pretty quickly,” Pandora commented, “Didn’t you, Councilor?”

“Ready to jump right in Arkud’s grave,” Mayes added.

“Unfortunately for you, that grave is not filled,” Icarus continued. “He’s alive. So your plan has failed.”

Adamos glanced to his aide. “They did this. Eliminate them.”

Persephone looked back up at him. “That’s my sister!”

“What choice do we have?”

Pandora looked up at her sister. “Sephie, please…”

Persephone looked away, considering for a moment. “No, you’re right.”

“Sephie…”

“I’m sorry, Pandora.”

“Sephie! Sephie, it’s me!”

Adamos stood firmly in place, waiting. “Do it.”

From behind them, Roys surveyed the scene before him. As the trio silently hoped for him to rescue them, Roys moved slowly closer, meeting eyes with Adamos. Slowly reaching up, Roys yanked off his necklace. As he did, he began to transform into a larger, muscular body, with a harsher face and angular features beneath wild dark hair shaved on either side. His skin formed a thin layer of fur while he grew pointed, nicked ears, and a mouth full of sharp teeth. His fingers ended in sharp claws, and a dangerous and playful expression formed beneath large, brown eyes with animalistic pupils as he returned to his bestial, shifter form. “I really don’t want to do this…”

“Then don’t!” Mayes shot back.

“They were planning on killing you anyway, you know that?” Icarus yelled, seething. “As soon as you did this!”

In anger, Icarus summoned his spiritual weapon directly in front of Roys.

“Don’t hurt him!” Pandora screamed.

Icarus drew his sword, holding up his shield as the ghostly blade knocked into the Beast. “He killed Castor!”

Unsure what to do about Persephone and Roys, Mayes went for Adamos. As they charged forwards, Adamos swung at them twice with a sword he pulled from his side. While they were able to dodge one of the strikes, the poisoned blade carved across their chest. Mayes took out both of their swords, keeping them sheathed. They smacked their weapons down, trying to wind him. In a hard blow across the head, Adamos stumbled back slightly, glowering at them. Mayes was silent, with unwavering fury fixed onto the Councilor’s eyes.

Pandora stepped up to her sister, grabbing her arms. “Sephie, please! I am begging you to do the right thing here!”

“I’m sorry Pandora,” she returned. “You know too much.”

Persephone held out her hands, thumbs touching and fingers spread. A burst of fire shot out, scorching Icarus while Pandora used her natural resistances to avoid the worst of the blow. Pandora glanced up at Persephone’s face, and it was clear from her expression that she must have known the blow wasn’t going to hurt Pandora as much.

Adamos turned immediately on Mayes, striking again with the poisoned sword as they did their best to dodge. The blade carved into them twice more.

Roys moved slightly closer, just out of Icarus’s range. Pulling one hand back, he conjured a shard of ice that he flung towards him. It flew straight past, a clear and obvious miss. He growled, shifting into an even more bestial appearance, similar to the figure they had seen on the rooftops after coming back from the Maw.

Icarus gave Roys a glare before turning to Adamos instead. Lifting his sigil to Kord, Icarus stepped up to Adamos and pressed it against him.  _ “Get out,” _ he growled.

In a flash, the form of Adamos disappeared completely into a different plane. Persephone looked absolutely shaken.

Icarus glared at the spot. “We’ve only got a minute before he’s back.”

Mayes looked to Icarus in shock. “And you know we need him back, to- ?”

“Yes, he’ll be back!”

With that, Mayes turned to go after Roys. They pulled out their sheathed swords, staring him in the eye. “Like Icarus said, he was going to kill you. Let Roman do it, or have you arrested. There’s no way you make it out of this in Adamos’s books.”

Pandora stared up at her sister, tears in her eyes. “Do you remember that Solstice Festival? Before mom died? Penny was only tiny… we all stood on the beach and watched the lanterns go up into the sky. All five of us, together. I want my sister back! Please…”

As Pandora stared her sister in the face, still feeling the singes of the burn on her skin, she noticed a thin layer of frost cracking on Persephone’s forehead, misting her eyes slightly. “I can give you two choices,” Persephone declared. “You come with me, Pandora, or you’re forcing my hand.”

“What does that mean?”

“Join me, or you fight me!”

“I’m not gonna fight you!”

“Then you’ve made your choice! Pandora, you just don’t understand!”

“No, I don’t!” Pandora pushed herself between Icarus and Persephone, distraught.

Persephone brought up her hands, and they began to glow with necromantic energy. An immense blast of arcane energy shot forward, knocking Pandora back in searing pain. “You’ve made your choice,” she declared, her voice echoing slightly as if there was something else in it.

Behind them, Roys slipped past Mayes and up to Icarus. “I’m sorry, we don’t want to do this, but, we have to!”

“No, you don’t!” Icarus yelled back.

Roys swung into him with his sword. As he did, a burst of green flame escaped from his shortsword. The flame bounced from Icarus to Pandora, scorching them both as Icarus retaliated with a flash of lightning. Seething, Icarus sliced at him as he sent out another spell. Necrotic wounds appeared over Roys’s flesh as Icarus’s spiritual weapon smacked in from behind.

“We’re not your enemy, but I fucking will be,” Icarus warned, glaring daggers at him.

Seeing Pandora nearly fall, Mayes rushed back over to Persephone. Calculating the strike for a moment, Mayes swung, bludgeoning her with the sheathed sword. She looked back at them with a laugh. “This fight is so fickle. These sorts of things don’t even matter.”

“Then stop fighting us,” Mayes returned.

Pandora looked like she could fall any second. “Please… please! Think of mom!”

“I’m doing this  _ for _ mom, Pandora!” she countered.

Pandora shook her head, desperate. “Mom wouldn’t want this.”

Persephone began to move her hands to cast a spell. As she did, Pandora fired off a counterspell, but Persephone’s magic was too powerful. Persephone’s spell landed on Icarus, trying to banish him along with Adamos, but Icarus managed to shake it off. “I’m not going anywhere, Misses. Not today.”

Roys stepped back away from Icarus. As he did, Icarus let out another spell, ripping open a few more necrotic wounds. Roys looked like he was about to drop.

_ “Back. Down!” _ Icarus demanded. “Or I will  _ not _ hold back!”

“How do I know what you’re saying is true?” he countered.

“Why would I be doing this if it wasn’t? We killed Kondou, we took the paperwork. They were going to kill you anyway, you’re expendable!”

“Prove to me they were going to kill me anyway!”

“I heard Adamos say it,” Pandora replied, her voice shaking.

Persephone looked back to Roys, shaking her head. “Roys, baby, don’t listen to them…”

“I’m gonna listen to them, Persephone!” Roys yelled back. “If he’s gonna get rid of me!”

“They said, do it!” Icarus insisted. “Use the Beast, and it’s two birds one stone!”

“Get rid of the Beast,” Pandora sniffed.

Roys stared at them all. Making his choice, he dropped his sword and lifted his hands.

“You’ve got a chance to live if you do this with us,” Icarus swore.

“...I’m willing to hear you out. Just bring him back!”

“Not yet.”

Icarus turned back to the tieflings. Persephone had been relentlessly trying to murder her sister. Icarus shot over a spell of his own against her, but Pandora let out another counterspell to block the attack.

_ “Pandora,” _ Icarus warned.

She stared up at him with watery eyes. “That’s my sister!”

Icarus sent his spiritual weapon flying through to smack into Persephone anyway, forcing her back. “Back down!” he ordered.

Persephone smiled. “Not on your life.”

Mayes smacked her with their swords again. Frost continued spreading down Persephone’s skin as Mayes did their best to wind her, and she let out a hiss of pain as they landed a blow against her gut. “Back down!” Mayes repeated.

Pandora took a breath, sending out another spell. “I suggest you tell me how this is something our mother would have wanted for you,” she whimpered.

As the spell settled, Persephone found herself forced to speak the truth. “Because… our father told me so,” she replied.

“What are you talking about? Dad hasn’t got an inch of magic in him.”

“Not that man across the city! Don’t be ridiculous.”

Pandora’s jaw dropped, aghast. “That’s our father! He raised us on his own for the last fourteen years!”

“And yet, he’s not our father, after all. There’s so many things you don’t know, Pandora!”

“Tell me!”

  
Persephone laughed, flicking out a hand that sent a blast of eldritch energy into Mayes. Recognizing warlock magic, Pandora put her hands on her head in shock. “You shouldn’t do that, you can’t do that…”

“Yes I can!”

“No you  _ can’t!” _

“And so could mom!”

Roys raised his hands, speaking quietly into them. Persephone laughed. “Shut up, Roiseus!”

Icarus whacked her with a sheathed shortsword. “He’s not coming back, and you are not getting out of this a free person.”

Persephone giggled. “It’s not even about Adamos!”

“Then what’s it about?!”

Mayes flourished their sheathed sword, and with a final blow, Persephone crumpled unconscious onto the floor.

Roys let out a breath, rubbing his face. “Bring him back!” he demanded.

Mayes glanced to Icarus. “I’ll tie her up, you bring him back.”

“No!” Pandora cried. “Don’t touch her!”

“Pandora, we need to tie her up,” Icarus insisted.

Pandora sank down next to her sister, grabbing her in her arms. “Don’t touch her!”

Mayes stepped away. “Fine. I will be ready to corner Adamos. Roys?”

Roys picked up his weapon. “Yeah?”

“He’s going to appear in the exact spot he was in,” Icarus explained. “Get ready.”

“Born ready,” Mayes returned.

Icarus dropped the spell, and Councilor Adamos appeared back in the same spot, looking slightly shaken.

Icarus raised a brow, letting out a prepared spell. “Miss me?”

Necrotic wounds split over Adamos’s body, with blood seeping through the fabric. Immediately, he sank to the ground, growing weak. Mayes grabbed him, restraining him in place.

Behind them, Pandora checked over Persephone. She didn’t seem like she was dying, but Pandora couldn’t shake her awake yet. She cradled her sister against her, sobbing.

Adamos broke out of the grapple, forcing himself past to run down to the other end of the room. Icarus and Mayes both managed to whack him with their swords as he went, and he stumbled over to Roys, collapsing to his knees.

Roys levied his sword at him. “Is it true?”

“What lies have they been feeding you?” Adamos returned, sputtering out blood.

“Is it true that you were going to get rid of me after this? After we killed Arkud?”

“Roys, we need him alive,” Icarus warned.

Adamos chuckled darkly. “What can I say, Roiseus. You’ve been messy. You’ve become a liability.”

The animalistic expression on Roys’s face morphed into desperate, devastated fury. He rammed his shortsword straight through Adamos’s chest, piercing the blade through to the other side as he yelled out.

“Roys!” Icarus called out, but it was too late.

Roys brought his foot up, kicking the corpse off his blade. “Fuck you! After everything I’ve done for him! ...I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here.”

“No. Roys, if you make one move towards that door, I  _ will _ take you down.”

Roys waved a hand, and a shimmer appeared over his form to obscur him from view before he ran back to the office he came out of. He dashed away at impressive speed, gone in an instant.

Outside in the square, the trio became suddenly aware of the ringing of alarm bells. There were dozens of city guards outside, and it was only a matter of time before they were discovered.

“We need to leave,” Mayes directed. “They’re going to think we did this.”

Icarus gave a final look to Adamos before turning back to Pandora. “Pandora, we need to go.”

She didn’t respond.

Icarus grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her. Pandora kicked and screamed, refusing to budge as she clung to Persephone’s unconscious body. “Get off me!”

Icarus whacked Pandora in the head with the sheath of his sword, but he didn’t have the heart to do it hard enough to knock her out properly. “Pandora, please!”

“Pandora, we have to get out of here!” Mayes urged.

From the end of the corridor, they could hear a guard shouting. “Hey, there’s voices in here! This way!”

“Pandora, we have to go!” Icarus demanded. He grabbed her again, pulling her off Persephone to drag her along. Icarus threw her over his shoulder and began to run.

Pandora screamed the whole way. “Sephie!”

They headed through the room Roys escaped through. Two dozen guards flooded into the antechamber as they did, and another guard shouted. “Over there! Councilor Adamos! Spread out, we’ve got to find them. They’ve got to be here somewhere!”

The desks had been pushed up against the windows to make for an easy exit. Mayes slipped through easily, reaching out a hand to help Icarus through. Icarus, still carrying Pandora, managed to climb out and into an alleyway at the side of the bouleuterion.

Mayes met his eye. “Damen.”

“Damen,” Icarus agreed.

They started running as the alarm was raised across Erran. Icarus grabbed at his necklace, sending a message to Orion.  _ “Things have gone south. Heading towards Southeast Gate. Got to get Dames out.” _

_ “I hear you. I’ll be on my way.” _

“Orion’s meeting us there,” Icarus reported.

They kept running. As they moved through the city, Mayes was completely unseen as they darted through the alleyways, but Icarus flagged behind.

“They’re down here!” someone yelled. “I see them!”

“Faster!” Mayes urged.

Icarus let out a cloud of fog as he ran. The fog filled the street, and the guards running in began to cough. “I can’t see them! Which way did they go?”

They kept running, but Icarus was tiring. “Pandora, can you move? Please, plase, I need you to move with me!”

He put her down, and she vacantly followed. They rounded a corner, sliding into another district through an alleyway and out into a bustling square. People looked up, immediately recognizing the orange tiefling from the descriptions on the posters.

“Is that them?”

“Is that the people that they’re looking for?”

“Somebody get the city guard!”

Icarus let out another cloud of fog, grabbing on to the others as they darted towards the nearest road. They continued on, climbing over low walls and hopping over balconies as they ran through the districts. The walls began to close in as they grew closer and closer to the prison.

They slowed down at the huge, thick stone walls that surrounded Erran, keeping the city safe. As they looked up, it felt like they towered for miles above them. The entrance of the prison sat before them. Cells were built into the very walls of the city itself. Should the walls ever be breached, the first thing attackers would face would be the wrath of prisoners trying to escape. It suddenly seemed ironic.

With this many city guards being called to the council, the entrance to the prison was unguarded, save for a large iron gate. Waving his hands, Icarus conjured a wall of water. The force of the water shot the gate out of the ground, breaking the padlock and throwing it upwards.

The three of them headed in. Mayes grabbed Pandora’s hand, and Icarus dropped the wall of water the moment they were through and into the dark corridor of the prison. The iron gate dropped heavily behind them with a clang.

Icarus grabbed Pandora, hugging her. “I’m…  _ so _ sorry, Pandora.”

She didn’t respond, but Icarus gave her a big squeeze anyway, taking her hand before they continued on.

They moved towards the first staircase. Helena had told them Damianos was somewhere upstairs. Mayes managed to keep to the shadows along the walls, but as soon as they got up to the second floor, four guards turned in surprise. They were sitting around a card table, but they stood from their seats at the sight of them.

Pandora’s crystal began to glow in her hand. Without even lifting it, she sent out an enormous ball of fire. All four of them burned to a crisp, shrieking and screaming in pain as they dropped to the floor. Pandora watched them silently as the flames flickered away.

The three of them continued forwards, searching for Damianos. Other prisoners banged on the cells hoping for rescue, but they continued moving down the hall for the next set of stairs. At the top, Pandora noticed a sign that read  _ Isolation _ opposite the main corridors. Remembering what Helena had seen, she headed for the door as the others followed. There was a thrum of arcane energy from the lock, but Mayes picked it apart in no time.

The door flung open, revealing a singular cell down at the far end of the room. Damianos sat alone on a stool, lifting his head at the sound.

Icarus ran inside, letting out a wave of thunder that busted off the lock. “Hey.”

“Get out,” Mayes urged.

“Come on. We need to get to the top.” Icarus offered out a hand.

Damen had nothing but his breeches and an undershirt. “I’ve never been happier to see you.”

“We’re getting out.”

With no time for hugs, Damen squeezed them on the shoulders, and Icarus passed him Lorakai’s sword to arm him as they moved. He took it quickly. “Let’s move. I’ll take the front.”

“No you’re not,” Icarus countered. “Not dressed like that.”

Icarus pulled out his new great sword, taking the front himself. Damen slapped a hand on Pandora’s shoulder, and she felt a surge of divine energy lifting her up, restoring her health. They moved onwards and onwards, winding up staircases and dodging guards, knocking them down here and there as they reached the penultimate level before the top.

Dozens and dozens of guards were waiting for them, filing down from the sentry walls above.

Mayes stepped out in front. “Everyone just get away from me for a sec?”

As the others stepped back, the terrifying form of Daichi burst out of Mayes, frightening every guard into backing away. As they moved through the crowd, they heard the sound of someone teleporting in from behind them.

Damen cried out. “Fuck!”

The three of them looked back to see a robed figure with a dagger up to Damen’s throat. “Keep Damianos alive,” the figure ordered. “The others, kill them.”

Damianos shook his head, staring back at the trio with wide eyes. “Not them! You can have me, but please, not them!”

Icarus, Mayes, and Pandora stood in horror as the first of their prophetic dreams came to life before their eyes.

None of the guards were willing to come close to Mayes, but some of them were beginning to load crossbows. Unarmed, Mayes walked up to the robed figure holding Damen. In a flash, the form of Daichi leapt out of Mayes, suddenly possessing them. The dagger went limp to their side as his arm dropped. The guards looked on in terror, frozen to the spot.

Mayes pulled off the figure’s hood. Underneath was a familiar blonde haired, tan skinned man with hazel eyes, now tinted with green from the possession. Mayes glanced back over to the others, shaking their head. “What do we want him to do?”

“Kill him,” Icarus decided.

Damen stepped away. “We just go. We kill him, all of these people are gonna turn on us. You keep him like this.” He turned back to the guards, yelling. “You part! You let us go!”

The guards slowly began to listen, stepping back.

“Who is he?” Pandora asked.

Damen looked him up and down, gritting his teeth and shaking his head. “Lord Constantine Nephus.”

“...He’s the head of the Typhon Assembly.”

“I would love to stay and know what he wants with me, but right now, we don’t have the time. Please, can we go?”

Icarus turned away. “Fine.”

“We live another day,” Mayes agreed.

The four of them turned, running to the next staircase and pushing through the doors. The guards parted as Mayes grew closer, still terrified. Lord Nephus stood paralyzed behind them, silently watching. Icarus closed the door as they escaped, letting out a massive spell to prevent them from being followed. Stone collapsed around the door, filling the space and blocking the path behind them.

Mayes sent a thought after Daichi, urging him to keep Nephus in place for as long as he could.

_ “I heard you,” _ Daichi’s voice echoed back.

They headed up the next flight of stairs to the top of Erran’s city walls. They were struck immediately by the scale of them. Looking down, the city was vast and sprawling, but also so, so small beneath them.

In the distance, something shot up out of the city streets. Two large bat wings spread out, flying towards them. Orion moved at full pelt, skidding down to land on top of the wall and panting heavily. “You’re alive! You’re alive! They’re here, they’re coming!”

He threw his hand up and pointed to four griffons flying out of the dark night sky, coming down towards the wall where they were lit with giant braziers of fire. The griffons came down to land somewhat clumsily on the small space before stopping.

“Come on. We can talk about all of this later,” a rider urged.

They were pulled towards the griffons. Each of the four riders thrust out a hand towards them, hoisting them up onto the backs of the mounts. They immediately pushed off again as Orion took flight beside them.

Launching off the walls of Erran, they felt the lurch of the huge creatures underneath them dive down towards the ground so fast that they felt the wind whip sharply around their faces. They clutched desperately at the sides of the saddle as they plummeted. After a few moments, they heard something exploding further down the walls, with a hail of arrows flying down after them. The griffons ducked and weaved in their descent, dodging before the majestic creatures pulled up at the last second to turn almost vertically upwards again, and into the night sky above the clouds. The moon shined down bright upon them, bathing them in a silvery light.

The three runaways, no longer students, looked back down at the city of Erran getting smaller and smaller. The wide, broad, lamp lit streets shrunk down until they looked like veins on the arid land beneath them, with the vast, dark ocean stretching beyond.

They felt weightless as the griffons began to glide on the air currents, and yet, so entirely heavy as they grew further and further from the place they had called home for so long. Mayes, for the last few years of their studies. Icarus, since he was a young boy washing up on the shores. Pandora, her whole life. All three of them were leaving behind family, friends new and old, their dreams, and aspirations.

They held tight to their mounts, knowing freedom awaited them as they flew on through the night, until the first rays of the new day broke over the mountain range beside the Shaiste. Erran and Delphos were far behind them now.

They felt their hearts sinking like rocks into the ocean, and yet, their souls began to soar. Like the griffons, they rode on the Winds of Fortune towards a whole new future, unplanned and uncertain, drawn ever forwards by the red threads of fate.

  
  



End file.
